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New    England 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK    •    BOSTON   •    CHICAGO   •    DALLAS 
ATLANTA   •    SAN    FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  Limited 

LONDON  •  BOMBAY  •  CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  Ltd. 

TORONTO 


A  logging  team  in  the  White  Mountains 


New  England 


A    Human    Interest 
Geographical    Reader 


By   Clifton  Johnson 


With  Two  Hundred 
Illustrations 


Published  by  The   Macmillan   Company 
New  York  MCMXVIII 

London  :    Macmillan  and   Co.,  Limited 


Copyright,  1917, 
By  the  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 

Set  up  and  electrotyped.     Published  March,  1917. 


J.  8.  Gushing  Co.  —  Berwick  <k  Smith  Co. 
Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


5" 
J63 


n 


Contents 


I     Life  and  Nature  Past  and  Present 
II     New  England's  Longest  River 
III     The  Development  of  Travel   . 


I 

12 
23 


MASSACHUSETTS 

IV  Cape  Cod 36 

V  Plymouth  and  the  Pilgrims 48 

VI  Boston,  Old  and  New 59 

VII  The  Fishermen 82 

VIII  On  the  Massachusetts  Coast 91 

IX  Nantucket  and  Marthas  Vineyard         .        .        .105 

X  The  Connecticut  Valley  in  Massachusetts  .         •  115 

XI  Beautiful  Berkshire 13° 

XII  Bay  State  Industries,  Places,  and  Famous  People  143 


CONNECTICUT 


XIII  Connecticut  Beginnings     .... 

XIV  Industry  in  Connecticut   .... 
XV    Along  the  Connecticut  Shore 

XVI     Connecticut  Places  and  Famous  People 

vii 


161 
173 
183 
196 


1C66i25 


Vlll 


Contents 


RHODE   ISLAND 

XVII     The  Story  of  Block  Island 211 

XVIII     King  Philip  and  His  Narragansett  Allies         .  220 

XIX     A  City  of  Pleasure 226 

XX     The  Smallest  State 236 


NEW   HAMPSHIRE 


XXI     Early  New  Hampshire 247 

XXII     The  White  Mountains 257 

XXIII    New  Hampshire  Places  and  Famous  People       .     270 


VERMONT 

XXIV    Early  Vermont  and  the  Green  Mountain  Boys  282 

XXV     Lake  Champlain 293 

XXVI     V'ermont  Industries 303 

MAINE 

XXVII    Historic  Maine 316 

XXVIII     The  Maine  Forests .  329 

XXIX     The  Coast  with  a  Hundred  Harbors  .        .        .  334 

XXX     Maine  Places,  Industries,  and  Famous  People  .  354 


Introductory   Note 

THE  text  of  this  book  presents  a  general  view  of 
those  characteristics  which  give  New  England 
interest  and  charm.  The  facts  are  drawn  from  geol- 
ogy, nature,  and  history,  and  from  industry  in  many 
forms  on  land  and  sea.  Biography,  literature,  legend, 
and  humor  have  also  each  added  their  portion.  That 
every  chapter  shall  be  entertaining  as  well  as  in- 
structive, and  that,  above  all,  the  text  shall  have 
constant  human  interest,  has  been  the  chief  purpose 
in  selecting  what  has  been  included. 

One  point  concerning  New  England  I  would  like 
to  emphasize  here.  Other  parts  of  the  country  can 
raise  far  larger  crops  of  various  kinds,  such  as  corn, 
wheat,  and  oats,  but  New  England  is  unrivalled 
as  the  place  to  raise  men.  Its  famous  sons  and 
daughters  have  conferred  on  it  a  great  attraction ; 
and  in  our  travels,  viewing  the  farms  and  factories, 
the  forests  and  waterways,  the  mountains,  the  rural 
towns,  and  the  big  cities,  we  shall  often  pause  to 
visit  the  homes  or  the  birthplaces  of  some  of  the 
worthies  of  the  past  whose  names  the  whole  nation 
treasures. 


Among  those  who  have  furnished  illustrative  material  for 
this  book  are  the  following,  and  the  pictures  obtained  from  them 
appear  on  the  pages  as  here  listed : 

The  Boston  and  Maine  Railroad  —  5,  22,  26,  77,  88,  97,  98, 
127,  130,  135,  146,  147,  151,  249,  259,  262,  264,  266,  267,  270, 
271,  274,  276,  277,  280,  281,  282,  284,  287,  296,  297,  299,  307, 

311,  340,  341,  346,  347,  350.     The  Boston  and  Albany  Railroad 

—  9,  121,  131,  139.     The  Bangor  and  Aroostook  Railroad  — 

330,  354- 

The  Kalkhoff  Company —  107,  113,  166,  18S,  240,  247,  268, 
321,  334,  343,  349,  351,  359.  Houghton  Mifflin  Company  — 
64,  96,  125,  152,  278,  358.  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons — 13  from 
Bacon's  "Connecticut  River,"  153  from  Abbott's  "Old  Paths 
and  Legends  of  New  England,"  206  from  Clark's  "History  of 
Connecticut."     E.  L.  Cleveland  Company  of  Houlton,  Maine 

—  364- 

State  PubUcity  Bureau  of  Vermont  —  23,  286,  294,  308,  310, 

312,  313- 

Mr.  Thomas  A.  Hine  of  New  York  —  109.  Mr.  J.  B.  Stand- 
ish  of  Hartford —  162.  Mr.  Albert  H.  Pitkin  of  Hartford  — 
199.  Dr.  George  P.  Coopernail  of  Bedford,  N.  Y.  —  209. 
Mr.  F.  N.  Kneeland  of  Northampton,  Mass.  —  197,  260,  265, 

29i»  3i5»  361. 

Nearly  all  the  other  engravings  are  from  photographs  by  the 
author. 


New    England 


A  Massachusetts  log  house  in  i8go 

Life  and  Nature,   Past  and   Present 

NEW  ENGLAND  is  nearer  Europe  than  any 
other  section  of  our  country.  Its  shores  were 
those  first  visited  by  people  from  northern  Europe, 
and,  after  colonization  began,  settlements  multiplied 
rapidly.    It  was  named  by  Captain  John  Smith,  who 


New  England 


came  across  the  Atlantic  with  two  ships  in  1614  and 
explored  the  coast  from  the  Penobscot  to  Cape  Cod. 

The  region  is  halfway  between  the  equator  and  the 
north  pole,  and,  though  the  winters  are  severe,  the 
summers  are  warm  enough  for  the  growth  of  a  great 
variety  of  grains,  fruits,  and  vegetables.  It  is  not  so 
far  north  that  its  harbors  are  closed  by  ice  in  winter, 

nor  so  far  south 
that  the  cli- 
mate lessens 
the  energy  of 
itspeople.  Per- 
sons with  weak 
constitutions 
find  the  climate 
too  harsh,  but 
it  helps  those 
who  are  natu- 
rally robust  to 
develop  a  desirable  vigor  of  body  and  mind. 

New  England  is  more  than  four  hundred  miles  long 
north  and  south,  and  often  the  southern  lowlands  are 
bare  when  the  forested  uplands  on  the  Canadian  border 
are  buried  deep  in  snow.  The  winter  weather  is 
very  changeable.  A  southeast  wind  from  the  Gulf 
Stream  is  likely  to  bring  a  winter  rain,  but  such  a 
storm  may  be  followed  by  a  cold  "northwester" 
with  driving  snow.  Then,  after  the  skies  clear,  the 
mercury  may  drop  well  below  zero. 


A  deserted  home  among  the  hills 


Life   and   Nature,    Past   and   Present  3 

In  the  summer  the  prevailing  winds  are  from  the 
southwest,  and  the  heat  is  frequently  intense,  except 
along  the  coast,  where  the  sea  breezes  moderate  it. 
Afternoon  and  evening  thunderstorms  are  a  feature 
of  the  warm  months.  These  showers,  though  they 
often  interrupt  farm  work  and  do  more  or  less  damage, 
supply  needed  moisture  to  the  crops,  and  replenish 
the  streams  to  the  great  benefit  of  the  mills  that  de- 
pend on  water  power. 

The  climate  was  once  much  colder  than  it  is  now. 
In  the  northerly  part  of  the  continent  the  snow  did 


Apple  blossom  time 


not  melt  in  the  spring,  but  accumulated  and  formed 
an  immense  sheet  of  ice.     The  ice  extended  across 


4  New   England 

Canada  and  covered  the  whole  of  New  England. 
From  the  northern  uplands  it  crept  slowly  southward 
in  a  vast  glacier,  and  its  front  edge  was  where  the  cli- 
mate was  warm  enough  to  melt  it  away  as  fast  as  it 
pushed  along. 

The  melting  ice  kept  depositing  boulders  and  lesser 
stones  of  various  sizes,  and  pebbles  and  gravel.  Many 
hills  in  the  southeastern  part  of  New  England  were 
formed  in  that  way,  and  some  of  the  neighboring 
islands. 

We  are  indebted  to  that  ancient  glacier  for  most 
of  our  numerous  lakes  and  ponds,  for,  as  the  ice  passed 
over  the  rock,  it  ground  away  that  which  was  soft 
faster  than  that  which  was  hard,  and  so  formed  basins 
large  and  small.  Most  of  these  basins  have  since 
been  filled  with  sediment,  but  many  of  them  are  now 
occupied  by  lakes.  Other  lakes  were  formed  in  val- 
leys that  had  been  dammed  by  glacial  drift. 

When  the  climate  gradually  became  warmer  the 
borders  of  the  ice  sheet  receded,  and  the  drift  rubbish 
that  it  deposited  is  found  over  a  large  part  of  New 
England.  The  scattered  boulders  are  often  entirely 
unUke  any  local  rock,  and  we  have  to  go  to  the  dis- 
tant north  to  discover  their  starting  point. 

Nearly  all  of  New  England's  early  villages  were 
distributed  along  the  coast  and  the  fertile  valley  of  the 
Connecticut,  where  they  could  communicate  with  each 
other  by  water.  Scarcely  had  the  settlements  begun 
to  push  up  the  other  valleys  when  this  expansion  was 


Life  and  Nature,   Past  and  Present 


checked  by  the  bloody  struggle  of  King  Philip's  War. 
Afterward  attacks  by  the  French  and  Indians  from  the 
north  made  it  dangerous  to  extend  the  frontiers  until 
Canada  was  conquered  by  the  English  in  1759. 

New  England  life  changed  slowly  for  two  centuries. 
The  families  that  gathered  before  the  big  fireplaces 
were  large,  and 
the  children, 
when  they  grew 
up  and  mar- 
ried, moved  on 
and  took  up 
new  land. 
They  cleared 
the  forest, piled 
the  boulders 
that  encum- 
bered the  soil 
into  stone 
walls,  and  pro- 
duced on  their  farms  the  necessaries  of  life,  including 
grain  and  meat. 

Roads  were  poor  and  travel  difficult,  and  each  com- 
munity depended  largely  on  itself.  The  farmer  built 
his  own  house,  and  raised  wool  and  flax,  which  the 
women  spun  and  wove  into  cloth  and  made  into  wear- 
ing apparel.  Indeed,  most  of  the  things  which  now 
would  be  bought  in  the  stores  the  rustic  household 
contrived  to  supply  themselves  or  did  without. 


A  glacial  boulder  in  New  Hampshire 


6  New   England 

The   earlier   settlers   built   their   houses   in   village 
groups  that  they  might  better  protect  themselves  from 


A  kitchen  fireplace  which  was  in  everyday  use  until  1900 

the  savages  and  the  wild  animals  of  the  wilderness. 
Later  the  tendency  grew  to  dwell  on  scattered  farm- 
steads. 

Population  showed  little  tendency  to  concentrate 
in  large  towns.  At  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth 
century  Boston  had  only  twenty-five  thousand 
people,  Providence  had  less  than  eight  thousand, 
Hartford  five  thousand,  Portland  four  thousand,  and 
most  other  places  that  have  since  become  populous 
cities  were  either  country  villages  or  did  not  exist 
at  all. 

When  the  settlements  had  flowed  over  New  England's 


Life   and   Nature,   Past   and   Present  7 

uplands  the  people  began  to  be  attracted  westward 
by  the  greater  fertility  of  the  lands  in  New  York  and 
beyond.  Trade  and  commerce  assumed  increased 
importance,  and  more  and  more  young  men  left  the 
farms  to  seek  their  fortunes  in  the  growing  seaport 
towns.  These  towns  waxed  rich  on  the  profits  of  their 
traffic.  Their  vessels  went  after  fish,  or  made  long 
voyages  across  the  seas,  carrying  the  surplus  products 
of  their  own  land  and  bringing  back  manufactured 
goods  and  tropical  products. 

New  England's  numerous  good  harbors  have  always 
been  a  valuable  commercial  asset,  and  all  its  states 
have  a  considerable  length  of  coast  in  proportion  to 
their  size,  except  New  Hampshire,  which  has  only 
eighteen  miles,  and  Vermont,  which  lies  wholly  inland. 

None  of  the  six  states  is  large.  Even  Maine,  which 
is  nearly  as  big  as  all  the  other  five  put  together,  exceeds 
in  size  only  four  states  outside  of  New  England.  Any 
one  of  nineteen  states  beyond  the  Mississippi  is  larger 
than  the  entire  New  England  group.  Texas  is  four 
times  as  large.  It  would  take  two  hundred  and  fifty 
Rhode  Islands  to  make  Texas. 

But  though  New  England  is  only  about  one  fiftieth 
of  the  area  of  the  United  States,  and  though  it  has  no 
important  gold,  silver,  or  iron  mines,  nor  any  exten- 
sive coal  deposits,  nor  much  rich  farm  land,  it  has  a 
fifteenth  of  the  nation's  total  population.  It  has  a 
still  larger  proportion  of  the  national  wealth,  and  the 
people  live  better  than  those  in  almost  any  other  part 


8  New  England 

of  the  world.  This  prosperity  is  largely  due  to  manu- 
facturing. 

In  colonial  days  New  England  had  very  few  mills 
except  those  where  logs  were  sawed  and  grain  was 
ground,  but  afterward  other  mills  increased  rapidly  in 
number  and  size  and  drew  more  and  more  people  to 
them.  At  first  the  workers  came  from  New  England's 
own  farm  uplands,  but  later  great  numbers  flocked  in 
from  foreign  countries.  The  numerous  rivers  that 
make  a  rapid  descent  from  the  hills  and  mountains 
furnish  an  abundance  of  cheap  power.  When  there  is 
a  good  fall,  even  a  small  river  is  capable  of  doing  the 
work  of  hundreds  of  horses. 

Dams  were  built,  and  the  water  led  around  the  falls 
in  canals  to  turn  the  wheels  of  the  mills  that  were 
erected  beside  these  artificial  waterways.  At  the 
more  important  falls  great  manufacturing  towns  have 
grown  up.  Their  mills  do  not  depend  altogether  on 
water  power  now.  Steam  made  by  burning  coal  is 
also  largely  used.  Nearly  all  the  coal  has  to  be  brought 
from  distant  mines,  yet  New  England  mills  and  workers 
are  so  highly  developed  that  the  region  continues  to  be 
a  great  centre  for  manufacturing  all  those  wares  in 
which  the  chief  essentials  of  production  are  skilled 
labor  and  mechanical  genius. 

As  a  farming  region  New  England  is  a  good  deal 
handicapped.  Much  of  it  is  mountainous  or  stony, 
and  the  only  very  fertile  portions  are  in  the  river  valleys 
and  along  the  coast.     A  large  part  of  Maine  is  wilder- 


Life  and   Nature,   Past  and  Present  9 

ness  and  swamps.  The  farms  fall  far  short  of  producing 
enough  to  feed  the  people,  and  the  great  food  staples, 
such  as  wheat,  corn,  and  oats,  are  largely  brought  from 
the  West. 

None  of  the  states  raises  wheat  except  Maine  and 
Vermont,  and  in  those  the  amount  is  small.  Corn  and 
oats  are  both  important  New  England  crops,  and  Con- 
necticut and  Massachusetts  have  good-sized  tobacco- 
growing  sections.  Apples  and  other  fruits  are  largely 
cultivated,  and  market  gardening  is  done  on  a  generous 


Water  power  on  a  typical  New  England  stream 

scale  near  the  cities.  Dairying  is  a  great  industry. 
So  much  milk  is  needed  in  the  big  cities  that  it  is 
sometimes  carried  on  trains  that  convey  nothing  else 


lo  New   England 

but  milk  cans  from  far  out  in  the  countr3^  A  great 
deal  of  milk  is  used  also  in  making  butter  and  cheese. 

There  has  long  been  a  decreasing  population  in  the 
upland  towns.  This  dates  back  to  the  building  of 
railroads  and  to  the  great  development  of  manufactur- 
ing that  began  somewhat  earlier.  Traffic  and  trade 
and  invention  increased  the  social  attraction  of  the 
large  towns  as  compared  with  that  of  the  country 
hamlets  and  lonely  farms.  Besides,  mowing  machines 
and  other  agricultural  machines  began  to  be  used. 
These  were  ill-adapted  for  work  on  the  rocky,  uneven 
upland,  and  remoteness  from  railways  or  markets 
there  made  it  difficult  to  dispose  of  crops.  Farm  life 
under  such  circumstances  returned  so  little  in  pleasure 
or  profit  that  it  could  not  keep  the  young  people  from 
drifting  away  to  the  towns,  and  deserted  houses  going 
to  ruin,  and  neglected  farmlands  growing  up  to  woods 
have  been  common  everywhere  among  the  New 
England  hills.  Often  the  only  trace  of  the  old  homes 
is  some  ruinous  stone  wall,  a  half -filled  cellar  hole  and 
chimney  heap,  or  a  brush-grown  family  graveyard. 

But  on  the  whole  farm  conditions  are  improving. 
Methods  of  work  are  better,  and  the  farmers  are 
learning  the  needs  of  their  soil,  the  scientific  use  of 
fertilizers,  how  to  combat  the  pests  that  threaten  their 
crops,  and  how  to  market  their  produce  effectively. 
Most  important  of  all,  the  social  pleasures  within  reach 
of  the  rustic  dwellers  have  become  more  varied. 

The  rural  villages  continue  to  be  trading  points  for 


Life  and  Nature,   Past   and    Present         i  i 

the  surrounding  farms,  and  the  country  stores  take 
eggs  and  butter  in  exchange  for  groceries,  dry  goods, 
tools,  and  other  wares.     Usually  each  farmer  has  a 


A  rustic  \ilhi,i!;c 

garden  and  small  orchard,  and  he  produces  hay  and 
corn.  He  keeps  at  least  one  or  two  horses,  a  few  cows, 
and  a  flock  of  hens.  Some  men  have  half  a  dozen 
kinds  of  domestic  animals,  and  cultivate  their  land  in 
small  plots  devoted  to  different  sorts  of  crops.  But 
the  progressive  farmers  give  their  attention  to  a  single 
product  or  class  of  products. 


Shad  fishermen  near  the  niouUi  of  ihe  Conneclicul 

New  England's  Longest   River 

THE  name  of  the  Connecticut  River  is  a  com- 
bination of  Indian  words  which  mean  "the  river 
with  the  long  tide."  This  descriptive  phrase  refers  to 
the  tidal  rise  and  fall  of  the  water  as  far  as  the  Enfield 
Rapids  above  Hartford.     The  river's  source  is  in  the 


New   England's   Longest   River 


13 


primeval  forest  at  the  extreme  northern  point  of  New 
Hampshire  near  the  top  of  the  mountain  ridge  that 
forms  the  Canadian  line.  Here  is  a  little  lake  of 
only  a  few  acres  which  is  more  than  twenty-five 
hundred  feet  above  the  sea  level.  This  is  known  as 
Fourth  Lake.  Within  about  a  dozen  miles  below 
are  Third,  Second,  and  First  lakes,  the  last  of  which  is 
also  called  Connecticut  Lake ;  and  all  four  are  linked 
together  by  the  infant  river.  The  stream  flows  south- 
ward between  Vermont  and  New  Hamphshire  and 
across  Massachusetts  and  Connecticut  till  it  reaches 


A  logman's  houseboat  on  ihe  upper  river 

Long  Island  Sound.  Its  entire  length  is  four  hundred 
and  ten  miles.  It  is  the  longest  river  in  New  England, 
and  its  valley  is  one  of  the  fairest  in  America. 


14  New   England 

In  the  ancient  valley  of  the  river  from  northern 
Massachusetts  to  New  Haven,  where  the  stream  for- 
merly joined  the  Sound,  marvellous  fossil  footprints 
have  been  found  in  the  old  layered  rocks.  The  New 
England  climate  was  much  warmer  in  that  remote 
period  when  these  footprints  were  made  in  the  water- 
side mud  of  what  was  then  an  inlet  from  the  sea,  and 
it  seemed  to  favor  the  development  of  gigantic  forms 
of  life.  Huge  birds  strode  about  that  were  four 
times  as  large  as  an  ostrich,  and  some  of  them  weighed 
nearly  half  a  ton.  There  were  strange  frog-like 
creatures  with  feet  twenty  inches  long,  and  many  other 
curious  animals  large  and  small  that  have  vanished 
from  the  earth.  No  bones  of  these  ancient  swamp  and 
jungle  dwellers  have  been  found,  and  but  for  the  foot- 
prints turned  to  stone  we  would  not  know  that  such 
creatures  had  lived  in  the  Connecticut  Valley  of  that 
far-off  time. 

WTiere  the  river's  bordering  lowlands  are  sufhciently 
broad  and  unobstructed  by  hills  and  rocks  it  forms 
long  loops,  and  the  channel  is  always  gradually  shift- 
ing. Sometimes  the  stream  shortens  its  course  by  cut- 
ting across  the  neck  of  one  of  these  "oxbow^s."  Such 
a  cut  was  made  in  1840  just  below  Northampton.  A 
farmer  had  ploughed  a  strip  the  previous  fall  from 
bank  to  bank  on  the  neck,  and  in  February  a  jam  of 
ice  in  the  bow  set  the  water  back  so  that  it  ran  across 
the  ploughed  field.  In  a  few  hours  it  had  torn  a  new 
channel.     This  caused  great   rejoicing  in   the   towns 


I 


New   England's   Longest   River 


^5 


above,  and  at  Northampton  the  bells  were  rung.     The 
towns  were  three  miles  nearer  tidewater,  and,  as  the 


'"■'/^■'M'-'i^'-', 


'■"■i^'.'iii,! 


^ 


A  river  oxbow  viewed  from  Mount  Holyoke  in  1840 

valley  had  as  yet  no  railroad,  the  river  was  an  impor- 
tant highway  for  commerce. 

In  the  winter,  ice  bridges  the  river  almost  completely 
from  source  to  mouth,  but  by  the  beginning  of  April 
the  ice  has  usually  been  much  weakened  by  the  sun's 
increasing  warmth.  At  the  same  time  the  snow  on  the 
northern  mountains  melts,  and  every  little  stream 
becomes  a  torrent  and  rushes  down  to  the  river  to 
swell  its  current.  Hea\y  rains  often  add  to  the  volume 
of  water,  and  the  ice  crumbles  and  is  swept  down  the 
stream.  The  channel  is  likely  to  fill  to  the  brim,  the 
low  ground  that  borders  it  is  flooded,  and  the  brown 


i6 


New  England 


meadows  that  lie  higher  have  long  lagoons  in  their 
hollows. 

Sometimes  the  water  rises  so  high  that  it  invades 
villages  and  scattered  dwellings,  and  it  may  carry  off 
buildings,  fences,  and  bridges.  The  greatest  flood  on 
record  was  that  of  1862.  It  was  caused  entirely  by 
melting  snow  in  a  spell  of  remarkably  warm  weather. 
Some  of  the  riverside  dwellers  had  Hvely  times  com- 
pelling their  horses  and  cows  to  wade  and  swim  to 
ground  that  was  not  submerged.  The  hens  were 
taken  to  lofts,  and  the  hay  and  grain  and  tools  were 
cared  for  as  well  as  possible. 

While  the  men  were  working  outdoors  the  women  and 
children  were  cleaning  the  house  cellars  and  first  floors. 


High  water  on  the  outskirts  of  Northampton 


Canned  fruits,  and  the  pickled  pork,  and  the  potatoes 
and  other  vegetables  were  carried  to  the  second  story, 


New   England's   Longest   River  17 

carpets  had  to  be  taken  up,  and  furniture  moved. 
Some  of  the  houses  were  situated  so  low  that  the  families 
in  them  were  carried  in  boats  to  houses  more  favorably 
situated. 

One  of  the  most  notable  floods  occurred  in  autumn. 
It  was  in  October,  1869.  For  thirty-six  hours  the 
rain  fell  in  sheets  and  streamed  down  the  window-panes 
so  that  a  person  could  hardly  see  out.  Husking  had 
begun,  but  much  cf  the  corn  was  still  in  the  fields,  and 
great  quantities  were  swept  aw^ay.  The  river  was  full 
of  stalks  and  pumpkins  and  wreckage  of  all  sorts.  An 
organ  factory  and  other  buildings  were  overwhelmed, 
and  after  the  waters  receded  many  black-walnut 
boards  from  the  organ  works,  boxes  of  boots  and  shoes, 
barrels  of  flour,  and  much  else  were  found  stranded 
along  the  banks.  But  nearly  everything  had  been 
greatly  damaged,  if  not  ruined,  by  the  muddy  water. 

The  Indians  were  the  river's  earliest  navigators. 
They  paddled  its  winding  length  in  their  bark  canoes 
and  dugouts  on  fishing  and  hunting  expeditions,  or  on 
forays  against  their  enemies.  Its  first  white  explorer 
was  Adrian  Block,  who  visited  it  in  161 4  in  a  small 
Dutch  yacht,  the  Onrust,  a  name  that  means  Restless  in 
English.  He  went  up  the  river  until  the  Enfield 
Rapids  prevented  his  going  farther.  Ten  years  later 
the  Dutch  had  begun  to  make  somewhat  frequent 
trading  voyages  to  the  river. 

All  through  the  colonial  period  the  Connecticut  was 
an  important  highway  for  trade  and  war.     At  first  no 


I  8  New   England 

large  craft  went  beyond  the  head  of  tide-water  sixty 
miles  from  the  mouth.  But  soon  a  scow  was  contrived 
that  with  twelve  men  to  pole  it  could  pass  up  the  Enfield 
Rapids,  and  then  it  could  go  on  as  far  as  the  South 
Hadley  Falls.  These  and  certain  of  the  other  falls 
beyond  were  an  effective  barrier  to  navigation  up- 
stream, though  rafts  and  boats  could  come  down  some 


A  fall  near  Greenfield,  Mass. 

of  them  when  conditions  were  favorable.     Men  became 
very  expert  in  running  the  rapids  in  their  flatboats. 

As  settlements  pushed  farther  and  farther  up  the 
river  and  the  region  grew  more  populous,  roads  were 
made  around  the  unnavigable  falls,  so  that  goods 
brought  by  the  flatboats  could  be  transported  on  the 
oxcarts  of  the  local  farmers  to  the  opposite  end,  and 
the  voyage  be  continued  on  other  boats. 


New   England's   Longest   River  19 

The  flatboats  were  generally  provided  with  a  large 
square  mainsail  and  a  topsail.  When  the  wind  was  un- 
favorable the  boats  were  propelled  by  poling.  The 
poles  were  from  twelve  to  twenty  feet  long  and  had  a 
socket  spike  at  the  lower  end.  One  spike-pole  man 
on  each  side  was  sufficient  for  the  smaller  boats,  but 
as  many  as  three  on  a  side  were  needed  on  the  larger 
boats.  The  spiked  end  of  the  pole  was  thrust  down  to 
the  river  bottom,  and  the  pole-man  brought  its  upper 
end  against  his  shoulder  and  walked  along,  shoving 
as  he  advanced.  The  captain  stood  at  the  stern  and 
steered  with  a  rudder  on  the  larger  boats,  and  a  wide- 
bladed  oar  on  the  smaller  ones.  Cargoes  of  merchan- 
dise and  the  household  goods  of  new  settlers  were 
brought  up  the  river,  and  shingles,  potash,  and  other 
products  carried  down.  Passengers,  too,  were  occa- 
sionally transported. 

A  canal  around  the  South  Hadley  Falls  was  completed 
in  1795.  This  was  the  first  canal  in  America  for  the 
improvement  of  river  navigation.  Its  length  was  two 
and  one  half  miles,  much  of  the  way  through  solid  slate 
rock.  Canals  were  made  later  around  several  of  the 
other  falls,  and  the  river  was  a  very  busy  thoroughfare. 
The  landings  along  the  shores  became  the  favorite 
resorts  for  leisurely  dwellers  in  their  vicinity  to  see 
the  boats  come  in. 

Some  of  the  later  flatboats  were  seventy  feet  in  length 
and  fifteen  feet  across  at  the  widest  part.  At  the  stern 
was  a  snug  cabin,  and  the  captain  and  crew  lived  on 


20 


New   England 


board.     The  crews  of  the  small  boats  boarded  at  water- 
side   taverns    and    farmhouses.     The    boats    usually 


The  outlet  of  the  canal  around  Enfield  Rapids 


tied  up  to  the  bank  at  night,  but  might  go  on  when 
the  moon  shone  and  the  wind  favored.  Trafhc  on  the 
river  kept  increasing  until  a  railroad  was  built  up  the 
valley. 

There  were  no  bridges  across  the  river  until  after  the 
Revolution,  and  ferries  were  an  important  institution. 
Many  of  the  early  ferries  had  no  larger  craft  than  a 
canoe.  If  a  mounted  man  wanted  to  cross,  he  sat  at 
the  back  end  of  the  canoe  holding  a  leading  rein,  and 
let  the  horse  swim  along  behind.  A  cart  would  either 
be  towed  over,  or,  if  a  stout  skiff  could  be  had,  the  cart 


New   England's   Longest   River  21 

was  taken  to  pieces  so  it  could  be  loaded  on  the  boat. 
At  some  ferries  a  raft  was  used.  Later,  flatboats  be- 
came common,  and  such  still  go  back  and  forth  at  the 
present  day  ferries.     They  are  kept  from  floating  down 


A  ferryboat.     Tlie  ferryman  is  on  the  shore  prymg  around  the 
end  of  the  boat  to  make  a  better  landing  for  the  load  of  hay 

stream  by  a  wire  that  slips  through  pulleys  on  the  boat. 
The  wire  has  its  ends  securely  fastened  on  the  banks, 
and  it  lies  on  the  river  bottom  except  as  the  passing 
boat  brings  it  up. 

Fish  formerly  abounded  in  the  river  and  were  a 
valuable  source  of  food  supply.  Shad  went  up  the 
stream  as  far  as  Bellows  Falls,  and  the  salmon  were  such 
powerful  swimmers  that  they  ascended  these  falls  and 
continued  their  journey  still  farther  north.     No  salmon 


22 


New   England 


come  to  the  river  now,  and  the  shad  only  make  their 
way  up  about  fifty  miles. 

Men  used  to  go  out  with  boats  into  the  rocky 
rapids  at  South  Hadley,  anchor,  and  catch  shad 
with  scoop-nets.  When  a  boat  was  full  it  would 
be  brought  to  land  and  the  shad  taken  out.  Then 
it  would  return  for  more.  Two  men  would  in  this 
way  sometimes  secure  three  thousand  shad  in  a  single 
day. 

Shad  are  no  longer  plentiful  anywhere  in  the  river, 
but  quite  a  number  of  fishermen  still  seek  them  down 
toward  the  river's  mouth. 


i    lii-j  wiiuli  lIk'  sluid  \vv\\-  not  ublc  lo  gel   up 


An  oxcart  load  of  hay  on  a  Vermont  highway 

The   Development  of  Travel 

WHEN  the  first  Europeans  came  across  the  sea 
there  were  no  roads  here.  The  Indians  did  not 
have  wagons,  horses,  or  cattle,  and  narrow  footpaths, 
scarcely  better  than  those  made  by  the  wild  forest 
creatures,  served  all  their  needs.    The  only  way  that  the 

23 


24  New   England 

pioneers  had  of  getting  from  place  to  place  on  the  land 
was  by  these  Indian  trails.  The  moccasined  feet  of  the 
savages  hardly  left  a  trace  of  their  passage,  but  the 
heavy  boots  of  the  white  men  soon  cut  the  soil  into 
well-deiined  pathways.  When  new  paths  were  made 
through  the  forests  the  settlers  "blazed"  the  trees; 
that  is,  they  slashed  a  piece  of  bark  off  from  frequent 
tree  trunks  along  the  way,  and  the  blazes  stood  out 
distinctly  in  the  shadowy  woodland  and  kept  travellers 
from  going  astray. 

There  were  no  bridges.  The  colonists  crossed  the 
lesser  rivers  and  brooks  by  wading,  or  perchance  on  a 
fallen  tree.  If  accompanied  by  an  Indian  guide,  the 
guide  might  do  the  wading  and  carry  the  white  man 
"pick-a-back." 

The  earlier  travellers  journeyed  with  packs  on  their 
shoulders,  but  presently  the  trails  were  widened,  and 
horses  bore  the  burdens.  Later  the  trails  were 
broadened  still  more  to  enable  carts  to  move  along 
them. 

The  roads  were  gradually  improved.  Swamps  and 
soft  places  were  crossed  by  means  of  corduroy,  which 
consisted  of  tree  trunks  cut  in  lengths  to  reach  across 
the  road  and  laid  side  by  side  in  the  mud.  They  were 
Hghtly  covered  with  earth,  but  this  soon  washed  off, 
and  made  a  wagon's  progress  over  the  roadbed  a  con- 
tinuous series  of  bumps. 

Gravel  roads  were  gradually  introduced,  and  after  a 
time  plank  roads.     The  latter  afforded  smooth  and 


The   Development   of  Travel  25 

comfortable  riding  when  new.  A  famous  trotting  horse 
about  1850  made  the  wonderful  time  of  "Two  forty  on 
a  plank  road,"  and  this  phrase  became  a  common  ex- 
pression to  indicate  the  acme  of  speed. 

In  recent  years  the  state  governments  have  done 
much  in  building  improved  roads.  The  road-bed  is 
first  laid  out  on  gentle  grades,  and  then  crushed  stone, 
coarse  below  and  fine  above,  is  put  on  and  rolled  hard. 
If  such  a  road  is  properly  cared  for,  and  the  spots  that 
wear  into  hollows  promptly  mended,  it  is  always  in 
good  condition  both  for  rapid  travel  and  for  heavy 
loads.  Unfortunately,  the  needful  care  is  sometimes 
lacking,  and  the  wear  and  tear  occasioned  by  automo- 
biles makes  the  upkeep  of  these  roads  very  expensive. 
The  first  cost  is  also  large. 

It  therefore  seems  doubtful  if  this  type  of  road 
can  become  universal.  A  decidedly  less  costly  road, 
and  one  that  has  some  real  advantages  over  the  stone 
road  in  country  districts,  is  the  clay-gravel  road.  Clay 
and  gravel  mixed  in  the  right  proportions  form  a  very 
firm  road-bed  that,  if  kept  properly  rounded,  does  not 
become  muddy  in  the  winter  and  spring  thaws,  nor 
does  the  summer  traffic  grind  it  into  dust. 

The  most  efficient  machine  for  keeping  a  dirt  road 
in  good  condition  is  a  simple  inexpensive  contrivance 
known  as  the  split  log  drag.  If  this  is  drawn  over  the 
highway  just  after  a  rain,  it  rounds  the  road  up,  smooths 
ofi  ridges,  fills  depressions,  and  packs  the  earth  down 
hard.     A  road  thus  treated  is  comparatively  free  from 


26 


New   England 


mud  and  dust,  and 
there  is  real  com- 
fort in  travelling 
on  it. 

Most  country 
roads  still  receive 
only  the  rudest 
and  most  unscien- 
tific care.  They 
are  mended  by 
scraping  in  waste 
from  the  gutters, 
with  the  result 
that  the  road  is  a 
morass  of  mud  in 
spring  and  deep  in 
dust  in  summer. 

In  January, 
1673,  the  first  mail 
on  the  American 
continent  was  de- 
spatched from 
New  York  to  Bos- 
ton by  way  of  New 
Haven,  Hartford, 
Springfield,  and 
Worcester.  The 
post-rider  arrived  in  Boston  a  fortnight  later,  and 
after  resting  for  a  day  or  two  he  set  off  on  his  return 


A  New  Hampshire  roadway.   The  name 

of  the  height  in  the  background  is 

Eagle  Cliff 


The   Development  of  Travel  27 

journey.  He  was  expected  to  make  the  round  trip 
once  a  month.  The  letters,  papers,  and  small  parcels 
which  made  up  the  mail  were  not  so  numerous  but 
that  he  could  carry  them  in  his  saddle-bags. 

In  1704  a  lady,  who  afterward  became  a  Boston 
school-teacher,  went  over  the  route  with  the  post-rider 
by  way  of  Providence  and  New  London.  They 
mounted  their  horses  and  left  Boston  on  Monday, 
October  2.  Tuesday  afternoon  they  came  to  a  ford 
which  she  did  not  dare  to  ride  through.  So  the  post- 
man got  a  boy  to  take  her  across  in  a  canoe,  and  he 
himself  rode  through  the  water  and  led  her  horse. 
Sometimes  the  highway  was  so  narrow  that  the  trees 
and  bushes  on  either  side  gave  them  "very  unpleasant 
embraces  with  their  branches." 

At  one  of  the  taverns  where  they  stopped  for  the 
night,  her  apartment  was  only  separated  from  the 
kitchen  by  a  thin  board  partition,  and  for  a  long  time 
she  could  get  no  sleep  "because  of  the  clamor  of  some 
town  topers  in  the  next  room." 

At  the  end  of  the  colonial  period  men  and  women  still 
made  nearly  all  their  journeys  on  horseback.  The 
ladies  often  rode  on  pillions  behind  the  men.  Horse- 
blocks to  aid  them  in  mounting  were  common.  Four- 
wheeled  passenger  carriages  did  not  come  into  general 
use  until  the  beginning  of  the  next  century.  Even 
the  two-wheeled  chaises  had  not  been  known  long,  and 
were  kept  by  their  owners  like  their  Sunday  clothes, 
to  be  used  only  on  special  occasions. 


28 


New   England 


After  the  Revolution  mail  was  despatched  from  each 
end  of  the  Boston  and  New  York  route  to  the  other 
end  thrice  a  week  in  summer  and  twice  a  week  in 
winter.  When  the  travelling  was  good  the  post- 
rider  made  the 
journey  in  six 
days. 

The  mail  for 
the  smaller 
places  was  left 
in  some  tavern 
or  store  where 
everyone  could 
look  it  over. 
It  consisted 
chiefly  of  news- 
papers. Let- 
ters were  few. 
Villages  off  the 
main  route 
were  not  likely 
to  receive  mail  oftener  than  once  a  week.  On  post  day, 
as  it  was  called,  half  the  inhabitants  would  assemble 
when  the  mail  arrived  at  the  village  tavern.  If  the 
post-rider's  visit  was  at  midday,  some  one  took  him 
home  to  dinner,  and  while  he  ate  he  related,  amid  the 
silence  of  his  auditors,  the  latest  news  and  gossip 
gathered  along  the  way. 

Stage-coaches  began  to  run  between  New  York  and 


A  four-horse  stage-coach 


The   Development   of  Travel  29 

Boston  in  the  summer  of  1772.  A  coach  starting  from 
one  of  the  places  on  Monday  morning  would  arri\'e 
at  the  other  on  Saturday  evening.  The  fare  was 
threepence  a  mile.  A  single  stage  soon  proved  to  be 
inadequate,  and  by  1802  a  coach  departed  over  the  route 
daily  from  each  end. 

News  could  travel  no  faster  than  the  stage-coaches, 
and  when  Washington  died  in  1799  at  Mount  Vernon 
on  December  14,  the  news  of  his  death  did  not  reach 
Boston  until  ten  days  later.  It  took  a  month  to  get 
in  all  the  returns  of  a  state  election  in  Massachusetts  in 
those  times. 

The  early  stage-coach  was  a  wagon,  the  body  of  which 
was  a  large  oblong  box  with  high  sides.  This  box  was 
on  springs,  and  up  above  was  a  canvas  or  leather- 
covered  top  with  side  curtains  which  let  down  in  cold  or 
stormy  weather.  There  were  usually  four  seats,  and 
these  accommodated  eleven  persons  besides  the  driver. 
The  seats  had  no  backs,  and  the  rear  one  was  preferred 
because  there  one  could  lean  against  the  end  of  the 
wagon  box.  It  was  customary  to  let  the  women  pas- 
sengers occupy  that  seat. 

Only  fourteen  pounds  of  baggage  could  be  carried 
by  each  person  free.  It  was  placed  under  the  seats. 
In  the  warmer  months  about  forty  miles  a  day  were 
covered,  but  in  winter  rarely  more  than  twenty-five. 

Josiah  Quincy,  president  of  Harvard  College,  who 
went  from  Boston  to  New  York  by  stage  just  after 
the  close  of   the   Revolution,   says:     "The  carriages 


no  '     New   England 

were  old  and  shackling  and  much  of  the  harness  of 
ropes.  We  reached  our  resting-place  for  the  night,  if 
no  accident  intervened,  at  ten  o'clock,  and,  after  a 
frugal  supper,  went  to  bed  with  a  notice  that  we  should 
be  called  at  three." 

Whether  it  snowed  or  rained,  the  traveller  must 
make  ready  to  start  by  the  help  of  a  candle  or  rude 
lantern.  Sometimes  the  coachman  would  call  out  to 
the  passengers  to  lean  to  one  side  or  the  other,  so  as  to 
prevent  the  coach  from  toppling  over  when  the  wheels 
went  into  a  rut.  There  were  occasions  when  they  had 
to  alight  and  help  lift  the  coach  from  a  quagmire. 
Once,  when  the  passengers  of  a  coach  rebelled  at  this 
requirement,  the  driver  sat  down  by  the  roadside  and 
calmly  lit  his  pipe.  They  made  anxious  inquiries  as 
to  the  meaning  of  his  inaction,  and  he  said,  "Since 
those  horses  can't  pull  that  carriage  out  of  that  mudhole 
and  you  won't  help,  I'm  going  to  wait  till  the  mudhole 
dries  up." 

The  passengers  concluded  to  alight  and  assist. 

In  the  early  years  of  the  nineteenth  century  the  stage- 
coaches were  built  with  oval  bodies  suspended  on  stout 
bands  of  leather.  There  were  three  seats  inside,  each 
intended  for  three  persons.  The  middle  seat  was  a 
movable  bench  with  a  broad  strip  of  leather  to  support 
the  passengers'  backs.  The  driver  sat  outside  in 
front,  and  most  of  the  baggage  was  carried  on  a  rack 
behind.  These  coaches  travelled  six  miles  an  hour  on 
good  roads. 


The    Development   ot    travel  31 

In  1827  a  Concord,  New  Hampshire,  carriage-maker 
invented  the  Concord  coach,  which  has  never  been 
excelled.  It  has  a  strong  heavy  body,  and  passengers 
can  ride  both  inside  and  on  its  stout  top.  This  is  the 
kind  of  coach  that  transported  the  mails  and  treasure 
across  the  western  plains  and  mountains,  and  it  is 
still  used  in  all  parts  of  the  world  where  there  are  no 
railroads. 

Toward  the  end  of  the  stage-coach  period  one  hun- 
dred and  eight  lines  ran  out  of  Boston,  and  forty-two 
from  Hartford. 

In  the  less  thickly  settled  parts  of  the  country  a 
stage  wagon  was  used.  This  was  a  primitive  uncovered 
vehicle  usually  drawn  by  two  horses.  Chairs  some- 
times served  as  seats,  and  there  were  not  always  enough 
to  go  round.  A  traveller  writing  in  1807  of  a  summer 
journey  in  Vermont  from  Burlington  to  St.  Albans 
says :  ''I  had  a  seat  on  the  mail  bag  and  other  goods. 
The  road  in  many  parts  was  continually  obstructed 
by  large  stones,  stumps  of  trees,  and  fallen  timber,  deep 
ruts,  and  holes.  I  shall  never  forget  the  shaking,  jolt- 
ing, jumbling,  and  tossing  over  the  road.  We  had 
only  two  poor  jaded  horses  to  drag  us,  which  obliged 
me  to  alight  and  fag  through  the  sand  and  dust,  exposed 
to  a  burning  sun." 

America's  earliest  railroad  was  built  in  Quincy, 
Massachusetts,  from  the  great  granite  quarries  there 
to  tide-water  in  the  Neponset  River,  a  distance  of  less 
than  three  miles.     The  cars  were  run  by  horse-power, 


32  New   England 

and  the  first  trip  was  made  in  October,  1826.  Wooden 
rails  were  used.  They  were  laid  on  blocks  of  stone,  and 
covered  with  strips  of  iron.  A  single  horse  could  draw 
twenty  tons  of  granite  on  one  of  the  wagon-like  cars. 

The  first  locomotive  trip  in  New  England  was  made 
from  Boston  to  Davis's  tavern  in  Newton  in  March, 
1834.  By  the  end  of  the  next  year  railroads  from 
Boston  to  Lowell,  Boston  to  Worcester,  and  Boston  to 
Providence  were  in  operation.  The  railroad  reached 
Springfield  from  Worcester  in  1839,  and  two  years 
later  had  been  built  over  the  mountains  to  Albany. 

On  these  early  railroads  the  speed  was  about  fifteen 
miles  an  hour,  and  the  fare  was  three  or  four  cents  a 
mile.  The  first  cars  were  Concord  stage-coaches  with 
the  wheels  altered  to  fit  and  stay  on  the  rails,  but 
soon  long  cars  were  substituted.  They  were  coupled 
together  like  freight  cars  with  no  platforms  nor  entrances 
at  the  ends.  The  outside  was  commonly  painted 
yellow.  There  was  a  running  board  and  three  doors 
on  each  side.  The  seats  were  arranged  as  now,  except 
that  they  were  in  twos  back  to  back  and  not  reversible. 
They  were  covered  with  drab  cloth  and  had  loosely- 
hung  bands  of  haircloth  for  backs.  Each  car  accommo- 
dated twenty-four  persons.  The  train  was  in  charge  of 
a  "trainmaster,"  who  carried  a  whip  to  keep  boys 
from  stealing  a  ride.  Neither  he  nor  the  brakeman 
wore  uniforms.  The  brakes  were  levers  worked  by 
hand. 

People  from  all  around  came  to  see  the  trains  when 


The    Development   ot  Travel  33 

they  first  began  running.  Here  is  a  paragraph  from  a 
local  paper  that  gives  some  idea  of  the  excitement  this 
new  method  of  travel  caused.  It  refers  to  the  passing 
through  Stamford,  Connecticut,  of  the  first  New  York 
and  New  Haven  train  on  an  autumn  afternoon  in  1849  • 

"The  citizens  of  this  village  were  nearly  frightened 
out  of  their  propriety  by  such  a  horrible  scream  as  was 
never  heard  to  issue  from  any  other  than  a  metallic 
throat.  Animals  of  every  description  went  careering 
around  the  fields,  sniffing  at  the  air  in  their  terror; 
and  bipeds  of  every  size,  condition,  and  color  set  off  at 
a  full  run  for  the  railroad  depot.  In  a  few  moments 
the  cause  of  the  commotion  appeared  in  the  shape  of  a 
locomotive,  puffing  its  steam  and  screaming  with  its 
so-called  whistle  at  a  terrible  rate." 

The  first  engine  on  the  Boston  and  Albany  road  was 
the  "Meteor,"  imported  from  England.  This  was 
soon  followed  by  the  Massachusetts-built  engines, 
"Yankee,"  "Comet,"  and  "Rocket."  Some  of  the 
earlier  cars  and  engines  had  only  four  wheels. 

None  of  the  engines  had  headlights.  The  freight 
engines  were  called  "  crabs."  They  had  upright  boilers, 
and  on  the  front  was  the  engineer's  cab  with  curtains 
around  the  sides.  The  fireman  was  back  of  the  boiler, 
and  he  had  no  shelter. 

At  first  the  cars  were  without  springs,  and  their 
jarring  motion  was  far  from  comfortable.  Accidents 
were  many,  and  often,  when  the  locomotive  broke 
down,  the  train  had  to  be  dragged  by  horses  or  oxen 


34  New   England 

to  the  nearest  station  and  repair  shop.  Soon  after 
Springfield  had  a  railroad  to  the  east  and  west,  a  freight 
train  ran  away  and  went  right  through  the  town 
roundhouse.  Three  men  were  killed.  Behind  the 
roundhouse  were  some  big  piles  of  cord  wood,  and 
that  wood  was  scattered  all  about  mingled  with  broken 
cars  and  freight  and  the  wreckage  of  the  building.  A 
great  many  people  flocked  to  the  scene,  and  they  wagged 
their  heads  and  agreed  that  these  railroads  smashing 
around  that  way  were  a  very  doubtful  blessing. 

The  road-bed  of  the  early  railways  was  made  of  what- 
ever material  came  handiest,  and  it  was  streaked  with 
all  kinds  of  soils  that  had  been  dug  through  or  dumped 
on.  When  the  ground  froze,  the  soils  that  held  water 
would  bulge  and  tilt  the  tracks  about  in  all  sorts  of 
shapes.  Later  gravel  was  used  because  water  would 
drain  through  it,  and  it  was  not  affected  by  frost,  nor 
was  it  very  dusty.  The  finest  road-beds  now  are  made 
of  broken  stone. 

The  tracks  were  at  first  made  of  flat  iron  strips  three 
fourths  of  an  inch  thick,  spiked  on  wooden  stringers. 
The  spikes  soon  rattled  loose,  and  on  each  engine  was  a 
man  with  a  sledge  hammer  watching  the  track  and 
ready  to  drive  down  any  spike  he  saw  sticking  up.  An- 
other source  of  trouble  lay  in  the  tendency  of  the  ends 
of  the  strap  iron  to  curve  up  into  what  were  called 
"snake  heads."  These  sometimes  pierced  the  bottoms 
of  the  cars  and  did  great  damage. 

When  the  T  rail  was  adopted  the  railroad  managers 


The    Development   of  Travel 


35 


thought  their  troubles  were  at  an  end,  and  that  little 
further  care  of  the  road-bed  would  be  necessary.  Grass 
was  allowed  to  grow  between  the  tracks,  but  the  wheels 
crushed  it  on  the  rails  and  made  them  slippery,  and  the 
roots  held  water  and  rotted  the  ties.  So  steps  had 
to  be  taken  to  keep  the  grass  away  from  the  neighbor- 
hood of  both  ties  and  rails. 

Southern  New  England  now  has  more  railroads  than 
any  other  section  of  the  Union  of  similar  size. 

In  1835  a  resident  of  Brandon,  Vermont,  built  an 
electric  motor,  and  with  it  operated  a  small  model  rail- 
way. Other  experiments  of  the  same  sort  were  made 
later  in  Europe,  but  not  until  many  years  had  passed 
was  an  electric  railroad  built  for  use.  The  first  one  in 
the  United  States  was  constructed  in  1883.  Since  then 
the  development  of  electric   car  lines  has  been-  very 


r- 

^ 

m  iw^■<' 

-frMt '-       J^  JbA 

k.. .  '"■ 

^^^   ■■■  ■  <•'  ^i  imx 

'^  -  ■*>'*^      Jt . 

"1 


A  horse-car  still  used  on  Block  IslaiK 


l.M  f) 


rapid,  and  latterly  many  powerful  electric  engines  have 
been  made  to  take  the  place  of  steam  engines  on  some 
of  the  great  railroad  systems. 


A  Puritan  maiden 

Cape   Cod 

CAPE  COD  thrusts  out  into  the  sea  like  a  man's 
bended  arm  with  the  fist  clenched.  It  extends 
eastward  thirty-five  miles,  then  northerly  thirty  more, 
and  has  an  average  width  of  about  six  miles.  In  the 
interior  the  land  rises  to  a  height  of  two  or  three  hun- 

36 


Cape   Cod  37 

dred  feet.  The  Cape  is  composed  almost  entirely  of 
sand,  not  only  on  the  surface,  but  to  a  great  depth.  A 
thin  layer  of  soil  overlays  the  sand,  but  there  are  many 
holes  and  ruts  in  this  weather-beaten  garment,  and 
at  the  extremity  of  the  Cape  the  sand  is  entirely  bare. 

Bartholomew  Gosnold,  who  landed  on  the  Cape  in 
1602,  gave  it  its  present  name  because  of  the  great 
number  of  codfish  he  found  in  the  adjacent  waters. 
Various  other  names  were  bestowed  on  it,  but  none 
held  except  Gosnold's ;  and  this,  as  the  famous  old 
Boston  parson,  Cotton  Mather,  has  said,  "it  will 
never  lose  till  shoals  of  codfish  be  seen  swimming  on 
its  highest  hills." 

Trees  do  not  flourish  on  the  Cape,  and  such  wood- 
lands as  exist  are  apt  to  be  fire-ravaged,  and  so  thin 
that  you  can  see  the  horizon  through  them.  Oak 
trees  twenty-five  years  old  are  often  a  mere- scraggy 
shrubbery  nine  or  ten  feet  high,  and  a  person  can  reach 
to  the  topmost  leaf  of  many  of  them.  Much  that  is 
called  woods  is  about  half  as  high  as  this,  and  consists 
of  patches  of  scrub  oak,  bayberry,  beach  plum,  and 
wild  roses,  overrun  with  woodbine.  When  the  roses 
are  in  bloom,  the  profusion  of  blossoms,  which  mingle 
their  perfume  with  the  aroma  of  the  bayberr>^,  makes 
these  patches  very  dehghtful.  They  are  Hke  oases  in 
a  desert. 

The  soil  is  not  so  infertile  as  it  appears,  and  there  are 
some  real  advantages  in  its  lightness  and  freedom  from 
stones.     A  book  printed  in  1802,  speaking  of  this  land 


38  New   England 

for  raising  corn,  says,  "A  plough  passes  through  it 
speedily,  and  after  the  corn  has  come  up,  a  small 
Cape  horse,  somewhat  larger  than  a  goat,  will,  with  the 
assistance  of  two  boys,  easily  hoe  three  or  four  acres 
in  a  day." 

Many  of  the  old  farmers,  however,  understood  plough- 
ing the  sea  better  than  ploughing  the  land,  and  they 
did  not  disturb  their  sands  much.  Some  of  the  land 
was  not  considered  worth  writing  a  deed  for. 

One  Cape  crop  which  is  known  far  and  wide  is  cran- 
berries. Thousands  of  families  in  all  parts  of  the  coun- 
try have  Cape  Cod  cranberries  served  with  their  roast 
turkey  every  Thanksgiving  Day. 

The  land  devoted  to  raising  these  tart  bright- 
colored  berries  was  originally  "fit  for  nothing  but  to 
hold  the  world  together."  Much  of  it,  with  the  crop 
growing  on  it,  is  worth  a  thousand  dollars  an  acre. 
The  cranberry  vines  require  a  great  deal  of  water, 
and  the  unsightly  and  apparently  worthless  bogs  are 
best  adapted  for  their  culture.  A  marsh  is  selected 
where  running  water  can  be  obtained,  and  after  it  has 
been  cleared  of  bushes,  stumps,  and  roots,  the  ground 
is  made  as  level  as  a  floor.  The  rich  bog  soil  is  then 
covered  with  sand  several  inches  deep  to  prevent  the 
easy  growth  of  weeds.  Here  and  there  ditches  are 
dug  across  it,  and  it  is  encircled  with  a  ridge  of  earth. 

During  the  winter  the  marsh  is  kept  flooded  to  guard 
the  plants  from  the  frost  and  kill  insect  eggs.  Often 
it  is  necessary  to  raise  the  water  in  the  ditches  while 


Cape   Cod  39 

the  berries  are  ripening  so  that  the  roots  embedded  in 
rich  peaty  soil  will  be  ke])t  moist  at  the  same  time  that 
the  sand  above  is  dry. 

The  plants,  when  full-grown,  cover  the  soil  with  a 
thick  mat  of  vines,  which  in  the  early  autumn  are 
twinkled  all  over  with  ripe  berries.  Picking  begins  in 
mid-September,  and  lasts  until  the  end  of  the  month 
following.  School  keeps  much  of  the  summer  in  the 
cranberry  districts,  and  there  is  a  long  autumn 
vacation  to  enable  the  children  to  help  in  the  berry 
bogs. 

During  the  picking  season  all  the  energies  of  the 
people  are  directed  to  harvesting  the  berries.  Dwell- 
ings are  closed  from  morning  till  night.  Cooking  is 
done  in  the  evening  or  on  rainy  days,  and  in  fair  weather 
every  one  is  on  the  marshes  all  the  hours  of  daylight. 
The  pickers  wear  their  oldest  clothes,  and  the  women 
draw  stocking-legs  over  their  arms  as  a  defence  against 
briers. 

If  the  weather  threatens  to  be  frosty,  while  the 
berries  are  still  unpicked,  brush  fires  are  made  at  night 
along  the  edge  of  the  bog.  The  fires  are  not  expected 
to  warm  the  air  much,  but  they  make  a  smoke,  which 
settles  over  the  level  hollow  of  the  marsh  and  serves 
as  a  protecting  blanket. 

Houses  on  the  Cape  are  usually  low  and  small,  and 
many  of  them  have  shingled  sides.  The  older  ones 
often  have  a  surprising  number  of  various-sized  windows 
in  their  gables.     There  are  apparently  windows  for 


40  New   England 

the  grown  folks  and  windows  for  the  children  —  three 
or  four  apiece ;  just  as  a  certain  man  had  a  large  hole 
cut  in  his  barn  door  for  the  cat  to  pass  through  and  a 
smaller  one  for  the  kittens. 

Every  town  had  its  windmill  before  the  days  of 
railroads.  The  mill  was  a  gray  octagonal  tower  with  a 
long  timber  in  the  rear  slanting  down  to  the  ground 
where  it  entered  the  hub  of  a  cartwheel.  This  timber 
served  in  some  measure  as  a  prop  against  the  onset  of 
the  winds,  but  its  main  purpose  was  to  enable  a  man, 
by  rolling  the  cartwheel  along,  to  turn  the  fans  of  the 
mill  to  face  the  breeze.  A  great  circular  rut  was  worn 
around  the  building  by  the  wheel.  These  mills  were 
set  on  high  ground  and  served  as  landmarks,  for  there 
were  no  tall  trees  nor  other  objects  that  could  be 
seen  so  distinctly  on  a  far-off  horizon,  unless  it  was  the 
meeting-houses,  which  also  were  commonly  on  an 
elevation. 

The  Cape  lies  very  open  to  the  winds,  and  the  buffet- 
ing of  the  fierce  sea  gales  is  evident  in  the  upheave  of 
the  sand  dunes  and  the  landward  tilt  of  the  exposed 
trees.  These  trees  have  a  very  human  look  of  fear, 
and  seem  to  be  trying  to  flee  from  the  persecuting 
storms,  but  to  be  retarded  by  laggard  feet. 

The  outer  side  of  the  Cape  presents  a  desolate 
succession  of  scrubby  hills  and  hollows  with  rarely  any 
cultivated  land  in  sight,  and  the  villages  are  for  the 
most  part  on  the  low-lying  and  more  protected  inner 
side.     On  this  side  the  water  is  often  as  smooth  and 


Cape  Cod 


41 


quiet  as  a  pond,  but  the  sea  is  "never  at  rest  on  the 
other  shore. 

There  is  an  almost  straight  beach  twenty-five  miles 
long  fronting  the  Atlantic,  extending  north  from  the 


On  Cape  Cod's  inner  shore.     The  boat  is  a  fisherman's  dory 

elbow  of  the  Cape.  Thoreau,  the  famous  nature 
writer,  once  started  at  the  southern  end  of  this  beach 
and  walked  the  entire  distance.  He  tells  how  every 
wave  sent  the  foam  running  up  the  hard  wet  sand, 
sometimes  making  him  beat  a  hasty  retreat  when  a 
billow  was  unusually  forceful.  The  sea  was  dark  and 
stormy,  and  the  breakers  rushing  to  the  shore  looked 
like  droves  of  a  thousand  wild  horses  with  their  white 
manes  streaming  far  behind,  and  the  long  kelp  weed 
that  was  tossed  up  from  time  to  time  suggested  the 
tails  of  sea-cows  sporting  in  the  brine. 


42 


New   England 


The  early  settlers  waged  war  against  blackbirds 
and  crows  to  protect  their  corn,  and  against  wolves 
and  foxes  that  were  prone  to  prey  on  the  domestic 
animals,  and  they  dug  clams,  fished  with  line  and  net, 
and  watched  from  their  lookouts  for  off-shore  whales. 

In  many  respects 
conditions  are  still 
the  same.  The  sea 
is  very  near  on 
both  sides,  and  the 
people  continue  to 
be  largely  depend- 
ent on  it  for  a 
living.  It  even 
furnishes  a  good 
many  of  them  with 
all  the  wood  they 
burn,  for  every 
landward  gale 
strews  the  beach 
with  wreckage  and 
drift  rubbish,  some 
of  which  has  value 
for  building  purposes.  Clams  can  be  dug  easily  along 
shore,  and,  if  a  man  chooses  to  go  out  in  a  boat,  he  can 
rake  up  quahaugs,  a  kind  of  deep-water  clam,  or  he 
can  catch  fish. 

One  of  the  most  exciting  events  to  the  dwellers  of  a 
waterside  village  is  the  arrival  of  a  school  of  black- 


Cape   Cod  4j 

fish,  a  species  of  whale  which  attains  a  length  of  fifteen 
or  twenty  feet  and  a  weight  of  a  ton.  When  these 
fish  are  sighted  leaping  along  at  the  surface  of  the  sea, 
the  men  and  boys  run  to  the  beach,  jump  into  their 
boats,  and  row  out  to  get  on  the  seaward  side  of  them. 
If  they  succeed  in  doing  that,  they  turn  toward  the 
shore  and  strike  on  the  sides  of  their  boats  and  blow 
horns  to  drive  the  fish  in  to  the  beach.  As  soon  as  the 
fish  are  stranded  their  pursuers  leap  out  and  lance  them, 
and  tie  ropes  to  their  tails  to  keep  the  tide  from  carry- 
ing them  away.  After  the  receding  water  has  left  the 
bodies  on  the  land  the  blubber  is  cut  off.  Kettles 
are  brought  to  the  shore,  fires  are  made  under  them, 
and  the  blubber  is  boiled  for  the  oil.  In  one  of 
these  blackfish  drives  over  fourteen  hundred  were 
captured. 

The  nearness  of  the  sea  has  played  its  part  in  enticing 
a  large  proportion  of  the  Cape  Cod  men  to  a  life  of 
voyaging ;  and,  when  the  voyagers  return  and  tell  their 
adventures  to  the  young  people  at  home,  an  eager 
desire  is  aroused  in  their  hearers  to  seek  fortunes  on 
the  water.  Not  all  who  embark  come  back.  At 
Truro,  near  the  end  of  the  Cape,  is  a  monument  in 
the  graveyard  that  bears  this  inscription  : 

Sacred  to  the  memory  of  57  citizens  of  Truro 
WHO  were  lost  in  seven  vessels  which  foun- 
dered  AT   sea   in   the   memorable    GALE    OF   OCT.    3, 

I84I. 


44  New   England 

Their  homes  were  all  within  a  circuit  of  two  miles. 
They  were  lost  in  fishing  vessels,  but  the  surviving 
inhabitants  went  a-fishing  the  next  year  as  usual. 

On  the  bleak  Atlantic  shore  of  the  town  stands 
one  of  the  most  important  of  the  Cape  lighthouses. 
The  Cape,  with  its  shoals  and  fogs,  is  a  region  of 
great  peril  to  vessels,  especially  for  sailing  boats  and 
barges  in  winter  and,  in  spite  of  the  gleaming  warning 
of  Highland  Light,  many  a  good  vessel  goes  ashore  on 
the  coast.  The  place  used  to  be  called  Dangerfield. 
This  was  a  very  appropriate  name. 

Where  the  Cape  joins  the  mainland  Buzzards  Bay 
makes  a  deep  indentation  from  the  south,  and  as  early 
as  1627  the  advantages  of  a  canal  here  were  recognized. 
Various  surveys  w^re  made  as  time  went  on,  and  ex- 
cavating was  started  twice  by  companies  that  after- 
ward abandoned  the  enterprise.  The  company  which 
finally  made  the  canal  began  digging  in  1909. 

During  the  five  years  that  it  was  being  completed, 
there  was  an  annual  average  of  thirty-five  ship  dis- 
asters and  twelve  lives  lost  on  the  Cape  coast.  The 
canal  shortens  the  voyage  from  Boston  to  New  York 
about  seventy  miles  and  enables  vessels  to  avoid  a 
considerable  stretch  of  exposed  and  stormy  water.  It 
traverses  low  salt  marshes  in  part,  and  the  land  at  its 
highest  point  is  only  twenty-nine  feet  above  the  sea- 
level.  The  length  is  eight  miles,  the  depth  twenty- 
five  feet,  the  width  at  the  bottom  one  hundred  feet. 
It  is  hghted  from  end  to  end  with  electricity  so  that 


Cape   Cod  45 

passage  can  be  made  night  or  day.  The  cost  was 
twelve  million  dollars. 

The  oldest  town  on  the  Cape  is  Yarmouth,  settled 
in  1639.  Its  men  have  been  famous  sea-faring  folk, 
and  in  the  days  of  the  sailing-vessels  they  voyaged 
the  w^orld  over.  The  majority  became  ship's  officers, 
and  a  goodly  number  of  them  amassed  wealth  in  the 
India  and  China  trade.  Nearly  every  other  house  in 
town  used  to  be  the  home  of  a  retired  sea-captain. 

Provincetown,  at  the  jumping-off  tip  of  the  Cape, 
has  an  ancient  old-w^orld  look  due  to  its  narrow  streets 
with  houses,  stores,  and  little  shops  crowded  close 
along  the  walks.  The  place  is  odorous  of  the  sea, 
and  the  waterside  is  lined  with  gray  fish-shanties  and 
storehouses. 

Back  of  Provincetown  is  a  desert  of  sand  dunes. 
These  drifting  sandhills  have  encountered  patches  of 
woodland  in  places,  and  covered  the  trees  to  their  very 
tops.  So  lonely  and  desolate  is  the  region  that  few 
people  visit  it,  and  there  are  natives  of  the  towii  of 
mature  years  who  have  never  crossed  it  to  the  other 
shore,  less  than  three  miles  distant. 

The  sand  drifts  like  snow,  and  the  Provincetown 
houses  were  formerly  built  on  piles  in  order  that  the 
driving  sand  might  pass  under  them.  A  traveller  in 
1849  was  told  that  the  young  ladies  had  a  dexterous 
way  of  emptying  their  shoes  at  each  step. 

It  is  stated  in  an  old  history  that  wheeled  vehicles 
were  such  a  rarity  in  the  place  that  "A  lad  who  under- 


46 


New  England 


stood  navigating  the  ocean  much  better  than  land 
travel,  on  seeing  a  man  driving  a  wagon  in  the  street, 
expressed  surprise  at  his  being  able  to  drive  so  straight 
without  the  assistance  of  a  rudder." 

Beach  grass  has  been  planted  by  the  government  on 
some  of  the  dunes  to  hold  the  sand  in  place.   This  grass 


Pruvincelown  at  the  tip  end  of  Cape  Cod 

has  an  affiliation  for  sand,  and  you  can  stick  one  of 
its  coarse  wiry  tufts  in  anywhere,  and  it  will  grow.  If 
the  grass  is  methodically  planted  the  shifting  dunes 
are  fast  bound  so  that  the  winds  assail  them  in  vain. 

It  is  an  interesting  fact  that  Cape  Cod  was  the  first 
land  the  Pilgrims  saw  after  a  voyage  of  more  than  nine 
weeks  from  England.  On  Saturday,  November  21, 
1620,  the  Mayflower  cast  anchor  in  Provincetown 
harbor.     A  i)arty  went  ashore  that  same  day  for  wood 


Cape    Cod  47 

and  fresh  water,  and  on  Monday  some  of  the  women 
landed  to  wash  clothes. 

Wednesday,  sixteen  of  the  men  under  Miles  Standish 
set  off  to  explore  the  country  and  were  gone  two  days. 
They  saw  at  a  distance  five  or  six  natives  and  a  dog, 
and  they  found  several  heaps  of  corn  buried  in  the 
ground.  When  they  returned,  two  of  them  bore  a 
basket  of  the  corn  slung  on  a  staff,  and  another  of 
them  brought  the  noose  of  an  Indian  deer  trap  that 
had  caught  him  by  the  leg. 

About  a  fortnight  later  a  second  exploring  party 
was  gone  for  three  days.  They  shot  a  number  of 
geese  and  ducks,  discovered  some  Indian  graves,  two 
empty  wigwams,  and  more  corn,  ten  bushels  of  which 
they  brought  a^yay  for  planting.  The  next  year, 
when  several  of  them  again  visited  the  Cape,  they 
sought  out  the  owners  of  the  corn  and  paid  for  what 
they  had  taken. 

One  tragic  incident  of  the  Mayflower's  stay  at 
Provincetown  was  the  falling  overboard  and  drowning 
of  the  wife  of  William  Bradford. 

While  the  vessel  still  lay  in  the  harbor  Peregrine 
White  was  born.  He  was  called  Peregrine  to  com- 
memorate the  fact  that  the  Pilgrims  were  still  on  their 
peregrinations,  or  travels.  The  General  Court  later 
honored  this  first  English  baby  born  in  New  England  b>- 
giving  him  two  hundred  acres  of  land.  He  grew 
up  to  be  a  man  of  ability  and  lived  to  the  age  of  eighty- 
four,  "  vigorous  and  comely  to  the  last." 


1'1\  nK)ulli  Rock  and  its  protecting  canopy 
Plymouth  and  the  Pilgrims 

IN  December,  1620,  a  party  left  the  Mayflower, 
which  was  at  Provincetown,  and  set  out  in  the  ship's 
shallop  to  explore  the  inner  coast  of  Cape  Cod.  The 
shallop  was  a  small  vessel  equipped  with  a  mast  and 

oars,  and  the  party  consisted  of  twelve  Pilgrims  and 

48 


PlyinoLith    and    the    Pilgrims  49 

six  of  the  ship's  crew.  In  the  afternoon  of  the  third 
day  of  their  voyage  a  sudden  storm  of  snow  and  rain 
came  on  them,  the  sea  grew  dangerously  rough,  and 
their  rudder  broke.  Afterward  it  was  all  that  two  men 
could  do  to  steer  with  oars.  To  add  to  their  troubles 
the  mast  snapped  off,  and  the  sail  went  overboard. 

They  narrowly  escaped  being  wrecked,  but  at  last, 
when  the  short  winter  day  had  come  to  an  end  and 
darkness  was  about  them,  they  found  refuge  in  Plym- 
outh Bay  and  anchored  under  shelter  of  an  island. 
They  went  on  shore  and  with  considerable  difficulty 
started  a  fire.  It  was  midnight  before  they  could  settle 
down  with  any  comfort.  The  next  day  was  spent  in 
drying  their  clothing  and  goods,  fixing  their  guns, 
resting,  and  giving  God  "thanks  for  their  many- 
deliverances."  On  the  day  following  they  kept  "their 
Christian  Sabbath." 

Monday,  the  twenty-first,  they  resumed  their  voy- 
aging and  crossed  the  bay  to  the  mainland.  There 
they  observed  a  great  boulder,  partly  on  the  shore  and 
partly  in  the  water,  at  the  foot  of  a  steep  sandy  hill. 
It  was  the  only  rock  on  the  wild  shore  for  a  long  dis- 
tance, and  it  offered  the  voyagers  a  very  welcome  land- 
ing place,  for  they  would  be  able  to  step  out  on  it  from 
their  big  clumsy  boat  without  wading  through  the  icy 
shallows.  The  coast  here  is  sandy  and  without  cliffs, 
and  the  presence  of  this  solitary  rock  seems  something 
of  a  mystery.  Geologists  say  it  was  brought  thither 
from  the  far  north  in  the  ice  epoch  by  a  mighty  glacier. 


50  New   England 

The  landing  of  the  Pilgrims  on  this  rock  is  one  of 
our  treasured  legends,  and  yet  no  rock  is  mentioned  in 
any  of  the  early  accounts  of  what  occurred  at  Plym- 
outh. Over  a  century  had  passed  when  a  man 
ninety-four  years  old,  who  lived  in  the  neighboring 
farm  country,  related  that  when  he  was  a  boy  his 
father  had  told  him  the  Pilgrims  landed  on  the  rock. 

At  one  time  it  served  as  a  stepping  stone  at  the  door 
of  a  Plymouth  warehouse.  In  1774  an  endeavor  was 
made  to  remove  it  to  the  Town  Square,  but  in  trying 
to  pry  it  out  of  the  ground  it  was  split.  The  upper 
portion  was  put  on  a  sledge,  and  there  was  much 
huzzahing  as  twenty  oxen  dragged  it  up  to  the  Square. 
There  it  was  deposited  at  the  foot  of  a  liberty-pole 
on  which  flew  a  flag  inscribed  "Liberty  or  Death." 
Not  until  nearly  a  hundred  years  later  was  it  taken 
back  to  be  rejoined  to  the  rest  of  the  boulder.  • 

The  boulder  is  now  under  an  ornamental  canopy 
of  stone,  and  is  protected  from  the  ravages  of  relic 
hunters  by  iron  gratings.  But  there  are  gates  which 
are  unlocked  for  visitors  to  allow  access  to  the  rock. 
Nearly  every  one  wants  to  touch  it,  and  now  and  then  a 
woman  will  bend  down  and  kiss  it  or  make  a  child  do  so. 

The  exploring  party  that  landed  from  the  Mayflower^ s 
shallop  found  springs  of  excellent  water,  and  a  clear 
brook  which  was  broad  enough  at  its  mouth  to  afford  a 
harbor  for  their  boats.  Nearly  all  the  local  Indians  had 
recently  died  of  an  epidemic,  and  there  were  deserted 
fields  on  the  high  ground  where  they  had  raised  corn. 


Plymouth   and   the   Pilgrims 


51 


The  explorers  returned  to  the  Mayjlower  and  rec- 
ommended this  spot  for  a  settlement,  and  the  little 
vessel  sailed  over  to  Plymouth  Bay.  For  a  time  most 
of  the  Pilgrims  continued  to  dwell  on  her,  and  not  until 
January  31  did  they  all  disembark.  April  had  come 
before  the  MayJJowcr  sailed  back  to  England. 

The  first  undertaking  of  the  Pilgrims  when,  in 
midwinter,  they  started  their  settlement,  was  to  build 
a  large  cabin  for  their  common  shelter.  They  finished 
it  in  about  three  weeks.  It  had  hewn  log  walls  and 
was  twenty  feet  square.  Twice,  before  the  winter  was 
over,  the  thatched  roof  caught  on  fire  from  sparks  out 
of  the  chimney  and  was  burned,  leaving  only  the  frame 
timbers,  but 
each  time  the 
thatch  was 
soon  renewed. 

By  spring 
seven  separate 
family  log  huts 
were  c  om- 
pleted.  They 
were  very  small 
and  rude,  and 
were  all  alike. 


The  pond  which  Francis  Bilhngton  mistook 
for  a  great  sea 


Oiled  paper  served  instead  of  glass  in 
the  little  window  openings. 

Soon  after  the  Pilgrims  landed,  Francis  Billington 
climbed  to  the  top  of  a  tree  and  discovered  a  broad 
pond  about  two  miles  from  the  settlement.     He  mis- 


52  New   England 

took  it  for  a  great  sea,  and  it  has  been  called  Billing- 
ton  Sea  ever  since. 

While  John  Goodman  and  Peter  Brown  were  cutting 
coarse  grass  and  flags  for  thatch  one  winter  day,  they 
saw  a  deer  and  pursued  it  with  the  result  that  they  got 
lost.  They  had  no  food,  and  all  night  they  walked 
back  and  forth  under  a  tree  to  keep  from  freezing. 
The  weather  was  very  cold ;  and  they  were  in  great 
fear  of  wolves  which  they  heard  howling.  It  was  late 
the  next  afternoon  when  they  found  their  way  back  to 
the  settlement. 

Several  times  during  the  first  month  the  settlers 
saw  in  the  distance  smoke  and  fires  which  could  have 
been  made  only  by  Indians,  and  on  three  occasions 
some  of  the  natives  themselves  were  seen.  In  April, 
while  a  council  was  being  held,  an  Indian  named 
Squanto  walked  in  and  accosted  the  gathering  in  Eng- 
lish. He  was  chief  of  a  tribe  living  in  Maine,  where 
he  had  met  many  English  fishermen,  and  one  of  their 
captains  had  carried  him  off  across  the  ocean.  Another 
captain  brought  him  back  and  left  him  on  Cape  Cod. 
The  Pilgrims  were  suffering  for  lack  of  food,  and  when 
Squanto  saw  their  plight  he  went  to  catch  eels  for 
them,  and  he  showed  them  where  to  fish.  Through 
him  a  treaty  of  peace  was  made  with  Massasoit,  the 
Indian  sagamore  of  that  region. 

There  was  much  sickness  among  the  settlers,  and 
half  the  little  band  died  the  first  winter.  So  fearful 
of  the  Indians  were  the  survivors  that  in  the  spring 


Plymouth   and   the   Pilgrims 


53 


they  mournfully  sowed  a  field  of  grain  over  the 
spot  where  the  dead  had  been  buried  to  prevent 
the  savages  from  discovering  the  weakness  of  the 
settlement  by  counting  the  graves. 

The  corn  which 
they  had  found  at 
various  times  and 
places  had  been 
carefully  kept  for 
seed,  and  the  In- 
dian, Squanto, 
taught  them  to 
plant  it  when  the 
new  oak  leaves 
were  the  size  of  a 
mouse's  ear,  and  to 
place  three  herring 
in  each  hill  with 
the  seed  for  fertil- 
izer. This  Indian 
helped  them  and 
lived  with  them 
the  rest  of  his 
hfe. 

In  May  the  first  wedding  in  the  Pilgrim  band 
took  place  when  Edward  Winslow  married  Susannah 
White.  He  had  lost  his  wife  in  March,  and  she  had 
lost  her  husband  in  February. 

One  of  the  notable  men  of   the  colonv  was  Miles 


A  Pilgrim  maiden  dh  the  bc-iuh 


^4  New   England 

Standish.  He  was  so  short  of  stature  that  a  neighbor 
in  a  moment  of  anger  called  him  "Captain  Shrimp." 
But,  though  undersized,  he  was  robust,  active,  and  dar- 
ing, and  he  was  an  experienced  soldier.  When  arrayed 
for  a  warlike  enterprise  he  wore  a  cloth  garment 
which  was  thickly  interwoven  with  wire,  a  breastplate, 
and  a  helmet.  His  wife  died  soon  after  arriving  at 
Plymouth,  and  the  captain  presently  decided  to  court 
Priscilla  Mullins.  In  accord  with  the  custom  of  the 
times,  he  sent  a  messenger  to  ask  Mr.  Mullins's  per- 
mission to  visit  his  daughter.  The  messenger  was 
a  young  man  named  John  Alden  who  was  living  in 
the  captain's  house. 

Alden  went  to  Mr.  Mullins  with  his  request,  and 
found  that  he  had  no  objection  to  the  captain's  court- 
ing Priscilla  provided  she  was  willing.  So  Mr.  Mullins 
sought  the  young  lady  and  sent  her  in  to  confer  with 
Alden.  The  messenger  arose  and  courteously  told 
his  errand.  When  he  finished.  Miss  Mullins,  after  a 
pause,  fixed  her  eyes  on  him  and  said,  "Prithee,  John, 
why  don't  you  speak  for  yourself?" 

He  blushed  and  bowed  and  left  the  house,  but  soon 
came  on  another  visit  and  spoke  for  himself  so  effec- 
tively that  their  wedding  followed  in  a  short  time.  The 
two  have  had  many  distinguished  descendants,  among 
whom  are  the  poets  Bryant  and  Longfellow. 

The  first  duel  in  New  England  was  fought  in  June, 
1 62 1,  with  sword  and  dagger,  by  two  Plymouth  ser- 
vants.    Both  were  wounded. 


Plymouth   and   the   Pilgrims  55 

Two  of  the  Pilgrims,  with  Squanto  to  guide  them, 
went  about  forty  miles  to  Swansea  that  summer  to 
visit  Massasoit.  They  presented  him  with  a  suit  of 
clothes  and  some  other  articles.  The  few  of  his  tribe 
who  had  escaped  the  plague  were  destitute  and  dirty. 

In  the  autumn  the  colonists  harvested  their  corn, 
laid  in  a  store  of  fish,  and  shot  waterfowl,  turkeys,  and 
deer. 

One  November  morning  the  village  sentry  shouted, 
''Sail  ho  !"  and  the  Fortune  from  England  entered  the 
bay.  The  settlers  were  ready  with  lumber,  furs, 
and  sassafras  to  the  value  of  £500  to  send  back  in  her. 

Shortly  afterward  the  Narragansetts,  a  large  and 
powerful  tribe  living  in  Rhode  Island,  sent  a  messenger 
to  Plymouth  "with  a  bundle  of  arrows  tied  about  with 
a  great  snakeskin."  This  was  a  threat  and  a  challenge, 
and  the  Pilgrims  responded  by  returning  the  snakeskin 
with  bullets  in  it.  That  served  to  quench  the  ardor 
of  the  Narragansetts  for  war.  They  would  not  receive 
the  snakeskin  and  the  menacing  bullets,  but  sent  them 
back. 

As  time  went  on  other  settlers  came  across  the  ocean 
to  Plymouth,  and  at  the  end  of  four  years  it  was  a 
town  of  thirty-two  houses.  The  dwellings  were  ranged 
along  two  streets,  one  of  which  ascended  the  hill  from 
the  shore  of  the  bay,  and  was  crossed  by  the  other  at 
right  angles  on  the  hillside.  Where  the  streets  met 
was  the  Town  Square,  on  which  stood  four  small 
cannon.     The  ends  of  the  street  were  protected  by 


56  New   England 

wooden  gates  which  were  fastened  every  night,  and 
paUsades  enclosed  the  town. 

The  meeting-house  was  a  large  square  flat-roofed 
blockhouse  of  thick  sawn  plank  on  what  is  now 
Burial  Hill.  It  was  also  a  fort,  and  six  cannon  were 
mounted  on  the  roof.  The  people  were  called  to  ser- 
vice by  the  beating  of  a  drum.  During  worship  each 
man  sat  with  his  gun  beside  him,  and  a  sentry  was 
posted  on  the  roof  to  keep  a  sharp  lookout. 

The  dwelhngs  were  a  single  story  high,  or  at  most 
one  story  and  an  attic.  Earth  was  banked  up  around 
the  foundation  for  the  sake  of  warmth.  The  chimneys 
were  built  on  the  outside.  Some  of  the  floors  were 
simply  of  hard-trodden  earth,  and  the  rest  were  made  of 
planks  roughly  hewn  out  with  axes.  Probably  none 
of  the  houses  had  more  than  three  or  four  rooms. 
Much  of  the  tableware  was  wooden.  Guns,  powder- 
horns,  bullet-pouches,  and  swords  hung  on  the  walls. 
The  people  now  possessed  many  swine  and  poultry, 
a  number  of  goats,  and  at  least  two  dogs. 

For  food  they  depended  in  part  on  what  they  raised, 
and  in  part  on  the  clams  they  got  from  the  shore,  the 
fish  they  caught  in  the  sea,  and  the  wild  creatures  they 
shot.  When  famine  threatened  in  winter  they  dug 
groundnuts. 

In  1623  they  were  in  much  distress  of  mind  over  a 
drought  that  began  the  third  week  of  May.  The 
weather  was  almost  continuously  hot,  and  when  the 
middle  of  July  arrived  without  rain  the  corn  began  to 


Plymouth  and  the   Pilgrims  ^y 

wither.     A  day  was  set  apart  to  pray  for  relief.     It 
opened  as  clear  and  hot  as  usual,  but  toward  evening 


One  of  the  old  Plymouth  streets 

the  sky  began  to  be  overcast,  and  soon  "  such  sweet  and 
gentle  showers"  fell  as  caused  the  Pilgrims  to  rejoice 
and  bless  God.  That  was  the  first  New  England 
Thanksgiving. 

Plymouth  long  ago  ceased  to  be  a  wilderness  village, 
or  even  a  rustic  town.  It  is  now  a  place  of  about  ten 
thousand  people,  but  it  still  retains  an  attractive 
savor  of  the  olden  times.  Considerable  manufactur- 
ing is  carried  on  there,  and  it  is  a  favorite  summer 
resort.  Something  like  fifty  thousand  people  visit  it 
every  year. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  spots  in  the  place  is 


58  New   England 

Burial  Hill.  Here  are  the  earliest  marked  graves. 
The  oldest  is  that  of  a  merchant  who  died  in  1681. 
There  are  a  number  of  very  curious  epitaphs.  The 
following  one  refers  to  a  Plymouth  boy  who  died  before 
he  reached  the  age  of  two  years : 

"Heaven  knows  what  a  man  he  might  have 
MADE.     But  we  know  he  died  a  most  rare  boy." 

Another  inscription  is  this:  "Here  lies  Interred 
The  Body  of  Mrs.  Sarah  Spooner  who  deceased 
January    ye    25TH    a.d.    1767.      She    was    widow 

TO   Ji@^" 

The  hand  points  to  the  next  stone,  which  marks  the 
grave  of  her  husband. 

Here  are  two  lines  from  the  epitaph  of  Tabitha 
Plashet,  written  by  herself : 

"z\dieu,  vain  world,  I've  seen  enough  of  thee; 
And  I  AM  careless  what  thou  say'st  of  me." 

She  was  a  rather  eccentric  person  who,  after  her 
husband's  death  in  1794,  taught  a  private  school  for 
young  children.  She  did  her  spinning  in  the  school- 
room, as  was  the  custom  of  the  day.  One  of  her  punish- 
ments was  to  pass  skeins  of  yarn  under  the  arms  of  the 
little  culprits  and  hang  them  on  nails. 


lli-^ioric  Faneuil  Hall,  "The  Cnulic  of  Lil)Lri\-  " 

Boston,  Old   and   New 

BOSTON  Harbor  cuts  deepl>'  into  the  coast,  and  is 
bordered  by  various  irregular  peninsulas.  The 
most  central  of  the  peninsulas  is  the  one  which  the  heart 
of  the  present  city  occupies.  This  was  originally  about 
two  miles  long  and  one  broad.     Coves  indented  it  on 

59 


6o  New   England 

all  sides ;  there  were  hills  and  hollows,  and  several  ponds 
and  marshes.  It  has  greatly  changed  in  size  and  shape 
since  then.  Some  of  the  hills  have  been  entirely 
leveled,  hollows  have  been  filled,  and  land  has  been 
made  where  the  coves  and  shallows  along  the  shore  used 
to  be. 

Boston's  first  white  settler  was  a  young  English 
clergyman  named  Blackstone.  He  came  about  1624, 
and  built  a  cabin  on  the  west  slope  of  Beacon  Hill. 
There  he  lived  alone.  He  started  an  orchard  and  had 
a  rose  garden,  and  his  house  contained  a  small  library 
he  had  brought  across  the  Atlantic.  Apparently  he 
did  not  care  to  have  near  neighbors,  for  when  the  Puri- 
tans, led  by  Governor  Winthrop,  arrived  he  did  not 
long  delay  moving,  and  established  a  new  home  in  the 
Rhode  Island  wilderness. 

Winthrop  crossed  the  ocean  in  1630,  bringing  nearly 
one  thousand  persons  and  a  considerable  number  of 
horses  and  cattle  in  eleven  ships.  After  stopping  a 
few  days  at  Salem,  where  a  settlement  had  already  been 
established,  he  sailed  to  Boston  Harbor,  and  about  the 
first  of  July  landed  at  Charlestown.  Here  was  a  rude 
little  village  which  had  been  started  the  previous  year. 
The  new-comers  set  up  booths  and  tents  and  built 
cabins,  but  their  provisions  fell  short,  and  there  was 
much  sickness.  By  the  end  of  the  hot  summer  nearly 
two  hundred  had  died,  and  some  of  the  others  were 
so  discouraged  they  went  back  to  England  in  the  re- 
turning ships. 


Boston,   Old  and   New  6i 

Across  the  Charles  River  the  settlers  had  the  Boston 
peninsula  in  plain  sight.  They  called  it  Trimountain 
or  Tremont,  a  name  suggested  by  its  most  prominent 
feature,  which  was  a  three-peaked  hill  near  its  centre. 
The  springs  at  Charlestown  were  brackish,  and,  largely 
for  the  sake  of  a  better  water  supply,  most  of  Win- 
throp's  colony  moved  across  to  Tremont  in  the  autumn. 
Its  name  was  soon  changed  to  Boston  in  memory  of 
an  old  town  in  England  where  some  of  them  had  lived. 
They  called  their  colony  the  Massachusetts  Bay  Colony. 
Massachusetts  was  the  name  of  a  local  tribe  of  Indians. 

The  settlers  built  houses  along  the  shores  of  a  cove 
that  indented  the  land  from  the  east  nearly  to  where  the 
Old  State  House  now  stands.  The  first  winter  was  a 
hard  one,  and  by  the  end  of  February  food  supplies 
had  run  so  low  that  a  fast  day  was  appointed.  The 
people  were  reduced  to  an  almost  exclusive  diet  of  clams 
and  groundnuts,  and  Governor  Winthrop's  last  loaf 
of  bread  was  in  the  oven.  He  had  arranged  to  have 
one  of  the  ships  that  brought  them  across  the  ocean 
get  provisions  and  return.  By  this  time  it  was  so 
long  overdue  that  they  had  concluded  it  had  been  cap- 
tured by  pirates,  but  now  it  arrived  well  stocked  with 
provisions,  and  Boston  celebrated  its  first  Thanks- 
giving Day. 

The  narrow  neck  of  land  by  which  the  peninsula 
was  connected  with  the  mainland  was  bleak  and  deso- 
late, and  exposed  to  the  violence  of  the  winter  winds. 
It  was  no  easy  task  for  the  inhabitants  to  keep  a  road 


62  New   England 

in  repair  there  above  high- water  mark,  and  in  some 
instances  travellers  on  the  neck  barely  escaped 
drowning. 

The  Bostonians  erected  first  a  fence  across  it,  and 
later  a  fortification.  There  was  a  gate  through  which 
people  passed  back  and  forth .  The  gate  was  constantly 
guarded  and  was  shut  at  a  fixed  hour  in  the  evening. 
Indians  were  forbidden  to  enter  the  town  with  fire- 
arms or  even  sticks. 

On  the  central  hill's  highest  peak  the  settlers  put 
a  beacon.  This  was  a  tall  stout  pole  with  footsticks 
on  the  sides  to  enable  a  man  to  climb  to  the  top, 
where  an  arm  projected  with  an  iron  cage  hung  on  it. 
The  cage  was  filled  with  pitch  and  pine  wood  which 
were  set  on  fire  if  a  night  alarm  needed  to  be  given. 
For  a  daytime  alarm  a  flag  was  hoisted.  The  old 
three-peaked  height  has  been  much  reduced  by  grading, 
and  it  now  all  goes  under  the  name  of  Beacon  Hill. 

Boston's  excellent  harbo^  and  central  location  caused 
it  to  develop  early  into  the  leading  town  in  New  Eng- 
land, politically  and  socially.  At  the  end  of  its  first 
century  its  waterside  was  edged  with  numerous  docks 
and  wharves,  and  back  of  these  were  winding  streets 
and  crooked  alleys  that  followed  the  base  of  the  hills 
or  climbed  the  slopes  at  the  easiest  angle.  The  streets 
near  the  wharves  were  paved  with  cobblestones. 
Dwellings  and  shops  were  mostly  of  wood,  and  dnly 
one  or  two  stories  high,  but  varied  much  in  color  and 
the  shape  of  their  roofs. 


Boston,   Old   and   New 


'3 


The  best  known  building  in  modern  Boston  is  the 
State  House.  Wherever  you  go  into  the  city  suburbs, 
if  the  weather  is  clear  and  sunny,  you  can  see  from  far 
away  its  big  gilded  dome  gleaming  on  the  top  of  Beacon 
Hill.  In  the  State  House  the  governor  has  his  offices, 
and  there  the  legislature  meets  every  year  to  make 
laws.  It  stands  on  land  that  was  formerly  a  part  of 
the  cow  pasture  of  the  wealthy  merchant  and  patriot 
leader,  John 
Hancock.  The 
front,  which  is 
considered  a 
fine  example  of 
the  architec- 
ture of  its  day, 
was  finished  in 
1798. 

A  book  by 
Oliver  Wendell 
Holmes,  one  of 
the  famous  literary  men  who  have  li\ed  in  the  city,  con- 
tains the  statement  that  "Boston  State  House  is  the 
hub  of  the  solar  system."  People  said,  "If  that  is  so, 
then  Boston  itself  must  be  the  hub  of  the  universe;" 
and  the  place  has  been  known  as  "  the  Hub  "  ever  since. 

Boston  has  been  noted  as  a  centre  of  learning  in  our 
country  almost  from  the  first,  and  there  are  many  great 
libraries  and  educational  institutions  in  the  city  and 
neighboring  places.     It  is  famous  for  its  publishers  and 


The  Capilol  on  Beacon  Hill 


64 


New   England 


for  the  literary  taste  of  its  people,  and  its  vicinity  has 
been  the  dwelling  place  of  a  remarkable  number  of 
celebrated  authors. 

One  of  these  was  Francis  Parkman,  whom  many  con- 
sider the  best  of  our  .American  historians.  He  was  born 
in  Boston  in  1823.  Not  long  after  he  finished  his  col- 
lege course  he  and  a  friend  joined  a  tribe  of  the  Dakotas, 
and  spent  several  months  beyond 
the  Mississippi.  They  went  as 
far  west  as  the  Rocky  Moun- 
tains. His  purpose  was  to  ac- 
quaint himself  with  Indians  who 
still  lived  primitively.  That 
remarkably  readable  book  of  his 
for  both  old  and  young,  "The 
Oregon  Trail,"  is  the  record  of 
his  experiences.  The  hardships 
he  endured  on  the  trip  made  him 
a  semi- invalid  all  the  rest  of  his 
life. 

Another  great  American  of  Boston  origin  was  Emer- 
son, who  was  born  there  in  1803.  When  he  was 
eight  years  old  his  father  died,  and  the  family  was  so 
poor  that  there  were  times  when  Ralph  and  his  brother, 
Edward,  had  to  share  the  use  of  one  overcoat.  Jeering 
school-fellows  would  ask,  "Whose  turn  is  it  to  wear 
the  coat  to-day?" 

The  State  House  fronts  on  a  corner  of  Boston  Com- 
mon.    The  Common  is  a  park  of  mild  hills  and  hollows 


Ralph  Waldo  Emerson 


Boston,  Old  and   New  65 

forty  acres  in  extent,  shaded  with  noble  old  elm  trees, 
which  are  the  pride  of  all  Bostonians.  Formerly  the 
water  of  the  Charles  River  lapped  its  western  borders, 
but  now  the  shore  of  the  Back  Bay  has  been  pushed 
more  than  a  mile  away  to  the  northward.  This  tract 
of  made  land  is  larger  than  all  of  the  original  peninsula. 

In  the  early  days  the  Common  was  an  almost  tree- 
less, rocky,  and  barren  pasture.  People  used  to  get 
stones  from  it  with  which  to  make  their  cellar  walls, 
and  the  cows  grazed  there  until  after  1820.  Wild 
roses  and  bayberry  bushes  grew  on  the  hillsides.  It 
contained  marshes  and  several  shallow  ponds  and  four 
hills.  Only  the  largest  of  the  four  hills  now  remains. 
This  formerly  had  a  powder  house  on  it. 

One  of  the  Common's  important  uses  was  as  a  parade 
ground  for  the  militia.  On  the  annual  muster  day 
all  the  train-bands  of  the  country  were  there,  and 
nearly  all  the  townspeople,  too.  At  such  a  time  many 
booths  and  tents  were  set  up  along  the  borders  for  the 
sale  of  eatables  and  drinkables. 

On  the  Beacon  Street  side  there  used  to  be  a  Wishing 
Stone.  The  young  people  would  walk  around  it  nine 
times,  then  stand  on  it,  or  sit  down  on  it,  and  wish. 
Their  wishes  would  come  true  if  they  did  not  tell  any 
one  what  they  had  wished. 

One  of  the  most  tragic  incidents  in  the  history  of  the 
Common  occurred  in  the  summer  of  1728  when  two 
young  men  fought  a  midnight  duel  on  it.  The  elder 
was  a  bookseller's  son.     The  younger,  who  was  only 


66 


New   England 


twenty,  was  the  son  of  a  clergyman.  They  quarrelled 
over  cards  at  a  tavern,  and  resorted  to  the  Common, 
where  they  fought  with  swords.  The  younger  fell, 
mortally  wounded.  The  other  took  refuge  on  a  frigate 
in  the  harbor  w^hich  sailed  at  daybreak  for  France. 
There  he  died  of  grief  within  a  year. 

The  Common  had  a  gallows  on  it  and  was  a  place  of 
public  execution.  Pirates  have  been  hung  there,  and 
Quakers  have  suffered  the  death  penalty  for  their 
faith.  WTien  the  British  troops  were  quartered  in  the 
town,  at  least  one  of  them  was  shot  on  the  Common  by 


"  1  he  lTo<f  I'oiul  "  on  lioslon  Common 


a  file  of  his  comrades  for  deserting.     All  these  victims 

lie  somewhere  beneath  the  sod  there  in  unknown  graves. 

Near  the  centre  of  the  Common  is  a  stone-rimmed 

body  of  water  known  as  the  Frog  Pond.     The  old-time 


Boston,   Old   and   New  67 

Boston  boys  used  to  slide  down  hill  on  to  this  pond, 
and  they  heaped  up  the  snow  to  make  a  steeper  descent. 
Just  before  the  Revolution,  the  English  soldiers  who 
were  camped  on  the  Common  destroyed  the  slides 
again  and  again  while  the  boys  were  gone  to  school. 
The  boys  protested  in  vain  to  the  soldiers,  and  then 
went  to  their  general  and  complained.  He  asked 
who  sent  them. 

"Nobody  sent  us,  sir,"  one  of  them  replied.  "Your 
soldiers  have  spoiled  our  snow-slides  and  broken  the 
ice  where  we  skate.  When  we  complained  to  them, 
they  called  us  young  rebels,  and  told  us  to  help  our- 
selves if  we  could.     Now  we  will  bear  it  no  longer." 

The  general  turned  to  an  officer  and  exclaimed, 
"Good  heavens!  the  very  children  draw  in  a  love 
of  liberty  with  the  air  they  breathe." 

Then  he  assured  the  boys  that  if  any  of  the  soldiers 
molested  them  again,  they  would  be  severely  punished. 

A  short  walk  from  the  Frog  Pond  are  several  historic 
churches.  One  of  these  is  the  Park  Street  Church, 
whose  slender  spire  overlooks  the  Common  from  "Brim- 
stone Corner."  In  this  church  our  national  hymn 
"America"  was  first  sung  in  1832  as  part  of  the  program 
for  the  celebration  of  the  Fourth  of  July. 

Not  much  more  than  a  stone's  throw  away  is  King's 
Chapel,  where  the  British  officials  and  loyalist  gentry 
worshipped  in  colonial  days.  Close  to  each  of  these 
buildings  is  an  ancient  cemetery  with  its  lowly  gray 
stones.     Some  say  that  in  the  King's  Chapel  church- 


58  New  England 

yard  the  notorious  pirate,  Captain  Kidd,  lies  buried. 
Before  his  reputation  became  as  black  as  it  did  later, 
he  was  employed  by  the  colonial  governor  of  New 
England  and  certain  others  to  go  on  a  voyage  to  catch 
pirates.  After  a  while  rumors  came  that  he  had  him- 
self turned  pirate.  However,  in  a  few  years  he  ap- 
peared in  Boston  and  delivered  to  the  governor  the 
treasure  he  had  acquired  in  capturing  various  ships. 
This  included  iiii  ounces  of  gold,  2353  ounces  of 
silver,  57  bags  of  sugar,  and  41  bales  of  goods. 

Orders  came  from  England  for  his  arrest,  and  he 
was  locked  up  in  Boston  Jail.  This  was  in  1699. 
The  prison  was  a  gloomy  building  with  thick  stone 
walls,  ponderous  oaken  doors,  and  dark  passages ; 
and  the  keys  that  the  jailer  carried  at  his  girdle  weighed 
from  one  to  three  pounds  each.  Captain  Kidd  was  later 
sent  to  London,  where  he  was  tried  and  hung.  How  his 
body  happens  to  be  in  King's  Chapel  churchyard  is 
not  explained,  but  the  statement  is  made  that  if  a 
person  will  visit  his  tomb  there  at  midnight,  tap  on  it 
three  times,  and  ask  in  a  whisper,  "  Captain  Kidd,  for 
what  were  you  hung?"  the  pirate  will  answer  nothing. 

Another  famous  church  in  this  vicinity  is  the  Old 
South  Meeting-house  at  the  corner  of  Washington 
and  Milk  streets.  It  stands  on  what  was  once  Governor 
Winthrop's  garden.  When  the  British  were  besieged 
in  the  town  they  turned  the  building  into  a  riding- 
school.  The  furniture  was  cut  to  pieces  and  removed, 
and  the  floor  covered  with  dirt  and  gravel.     Deacon 


Boston,  Old   and   New 


Hubbard's  beautiful  carved  pew,  with  its  silk  up- 
holstery, was  carried  off  by  an  officer  to  be  made  into 
a  pigsty. 

Just  across  Milk  Street  from  this  church  there  used 
to  be  a  little  two-story  wooden  dwelling  which  was  the 
birthplace  of  Benjamin 
Franklin.  He  was  the 
fifteenth  of  his  father's 
seventeen  children. 
An  older  brother  was 
a  printer,  and  Ben- 
jamin was  apprenticed 
to  him  to  learn  the 
trade.  But  at  the  age 
of  seventeen  he  secretly 
left  home  and  made  his 
way,  partly  by  sea 
and  partly  by  land,  to 
Philadelphia,  where  he 
won  fame  and  fortune. 

One  of  the  quaintest 
of  Boston's  buildings 
is  the  Old  State  House 
at  the  head  of  what 
was  King  Street  in  colonial  days.  Here  the  pioneers 
built  their  first  church.  It  was  a  small  one-story 
building  with  plastered  stone  walls  and  a  thatched 
roof.  In  King  Street  were  located  the  stocks,  pillor}-, 
and  whipping-post.     The  children  could  look  out  of 


The  Okl  South  Church 


70 


New   England 


the  neighboring  pubhc  schools  and  see  the  punish- 
ments inflicted,  and  there  would  usually  be  a  curious 
crowd  in  the  street  gathered  about  the  spot.  Some- 
times women  were 
brought  there  from 
prison  in  a  cage 
on  a  cart.  Then 
they  were  tied  to  the 
red-painted  whip- 
ping-post and  given 
thirty  or  forty  lashes 
on  their  backs.  The 
pillory  was  on  a 
platform,  and  when 
a  man  had  his  hands 
and  head  made  fast 
in  it  he  had  to  stand, 
scarcely  able  to 
move,  exposed  to 
insulting  words,  and 
perhaps  pelted  with 
rotten  eggs  and  gar- 
bage. The  stocks 
were  about  as  bad, 
for,  though  the  culprit  sat  down,  his  legs  were  gripped 
tight  between  two  blocks  of  wood. 

It  was  just  below  the  Old  State  House  that  the  Boston 
Massacre  occurred  in  1770.  The  Bostonians  were  feel- 
ing a  good  deal  irritated  because  two  regiments  of 


The  Old  State  House  at  the  head  of 
what  used  to  be  King  Street  in 
colonial  days.  In  the  lower  right- 
hand  corner  of  the  picture  is  the 
spot  where  the  Boston  Massacre 
occurred,  March  5,  1770 


Boston,   Old   and   New  71 

British  soldiers  were  quartered  in  the  town,  and  about 
eight  o'clock  on  the  evening  of  March  fifth  a  group  of 
boys  gathered  around  a  British  sentinel  on  the  snow-cov- 
ered King  Street,  and  began  taunting  him.  Presently 
he  struck  a  barber's  apprentice,  who  was  one  of  the  lads, 
a  blow  with  his  musket,  and  the  boy  went  off  crying. 

About  the  same  time  a  crowd,  which  had  collected 
near  the  barracks  on  Brattle  Street,  got  into  a  scuffle 
with  the  soldiers  there.  Then  some  men  lifted  a  boy 
through  a  church  window,  and  he- rang  the  bell.  The 
citizens  in  their  homes  thought  this  was  an  alarm  of 
fire,  and  they  came  flocking  forth  with  their  fire  buckets. 
As  several  of  them  were  passing  the  sentinel  in  the 
square  below  the  State  House,  the  barber's  apprentice 
came  along  and  called  out,  "That  man  knocked  me 
down  with  the  butt  end  of  his  gun  !" 

The  crowd  then  began  to  pelt  the  sentinel  with  snow- 
balls, and  the  more  aggressive  shouted,  "Kill  him!" 

Soon  a  captain  with  seven  privates  came  to  his 
rescue,  and  confronted  the  angry  crowd  of  fifty  or  sixty 
unarmed  men.  The  latter  pressed  up  to  the  very 
muzzles  of  the  guns,  and  they  threw  snow  in  the  sol- 
diers' faces,  shouting,  "Fire  if  you  dare !"  and  "Come 
on,  you  lobster-backs !" 

Suddenly  some  of  the  guns  were  discharged,  instantly 
killing  four  men  and  wounding  seven  others,  two  of 
whom  afterward  died.  The  mob  turned  and  fled, 
as  all  mobs  are  apt  to  do. 

The  drums  beat  now,  and  an  entire  regiment  marched 


72  New   England 

into  the  street,  and  the  whole  town  swarmed  to  the 
place.  But  after  the  soldiers  concerned  in  the  firing 
had  been  arrested,  things  quieted  down.  When  the 
soldiers  were  tried  all  were  acquitted  except  two,  who 
were  sentenced  to  be  branded  on  the  open  hand. 

A  few  streets  northerly  is  Faneuil  Hall,  "  the  Cradle 
of  Liberty,"  so  called  because  in  it  the  colonists  held 
many  public  meetings  when  the  struggle  with  the 
mother  country  was  approaching.  It  has  always  been 
a  combination  of  hall  above  and  market  below  from  the 
time  that  Peter  Faneuil  built  and  presented  it  to  the 
town.  About  twenty  years  later,  in  1763,  the  interior 
was  destroyed  by  a  fire,  and  the  funds  for  rebuilding 
were  supplied  by  a  lottery. 

The  market  gardeners,  whose  covered  wagons  laden 
with  vegetables  and  fruit  are  arranged  every  week- 
day in  orderly  rows  beside  the  great  building,  come 
from  all  the  country  around.  Some  are  from  places 
thirty-five  miles  away  and  have  started  at  nightfall, 
or  earlier  on  the  previous  day.  They  begin  to  arrive 
by  midnight  and  keep  coming  until  the  day  dawns. 
After  getting  their  wagons  into  position  and  stabling 
their  horses,  the  early  comers  drowse  away  the  rest  of 
the  night  in  some  comfortable  corner.  But  when  the 
darkness  begins  to  pale  they  uncover  their  loads,  and 
customers  soon  appear.  The  scene  becomes  more 
and  more  animated,  until  it  is  difficult  to  find  one's 
way  about  among  the  carts  and  the  eager  bargainers. 

At  sunrise  a  gong  strikes,  and  the  great  building 


Boston,   Old   and   New  /^ 

itself  is  opened  to  trade.  There  *  is  a  central  walk 
through  it  lined  with  stalls  in  charge  of  white-frocked 
men. 

As  soon  as  the  produce  in  the  wagons  that  come  in 
from  the  country  has  all  been  sold,  the  drivers  start 
homeward,  sometynes  quite  early,  but,  if  trade  has 
been  slow,  not  until  late  in  the  day. 

Boston's  early  settlers  soon  established  at  the  north 
end  of  the  peninsula  a  village  which  was  quite  distinct 
from  the  one  near  Beacon  Hill.  This  is  a  crowded 
foreign  section  of  the  city  now,  and  one  portion  of  it 
is  known  as  "Little  Italy."  Here  still  stands  the  Old 
North  Meeting-house,  famous  for  its  connection  with 
Paul  Revere 's  Ride.  On  the  evening  of  April  i8,  1775, 
he  left  the  town  in  a  boat,  and  from  the  other  shore 
of  the  Charles  River  watched  until  two  signal  lanterns 
displayed  in  its  belfry  informed  him  that  the  British 
troops  in  Boston  were  about  to  cross  the  river  to  make  a 
night  raid  and  capture  the  military  stores  at  Concord. 

A  little  distance  from  the  old  church,  fronting 
on  the  waterside,  is  Copp's  Hill,  now  graded  down  so 
that  it  is  much  lower  and  less  steep  than  formerly.  It 
had  a  windmill  on  its  top  in  the  early  days.  During 
the  siege  of  Boston  the  British  threw  up  a  redoubt  there 
with  a  parapet  made  of  barrels  filled  with  earth. 

In  this  \'icinity  lived  Mother  Cary,  the  witch.  Once, 
when  rosemary  was  in  great  demand  as  a  medicine  for 
asthma,  and  none  was  to  be  had  in  the  town,  she  is 
said  to  have  made  a  trip  to  Bermuda  and  back  in  an 


74 


New   England 


egg-shell  in  a  single  night  to  obtain  a  supply  of  the 
plant. 

Another  old  woman  of  this  part  of  the  town  had  nine 
cats  which  she  was  in  the  habit  of  consulting  to  enable 

her  to  give  information  as 
to  wher^  stolen  goods  were 
secreted. 

Charlestown  is  now  a 
part  of  Boston,  and  is 
connected  by  bridges  with 
the  peninsula.  On  one 
of  its  heights  rises  the 
granite  shaft  of  Bunker 
Hill  Monument,  which 
commemorates  the  famous 
battle  fought  there.  The 
corner-stone  was  laid  by 
Lafayette  in  1825,  and 
Daniel  Webster  was  the 
orator  of  the  occasion,  as 
he  was  also  when  the  completion  of  the  monument 
was  celebrated  in  1843.  Inside  of  the  shaft  is  a 
spiral  stairway  of  two  hundred  and  ninety-five  stone 
steps,  up  which  one  can  climb  to  the  top.  The  material 
used  in  constructing  the  monument  is  granite  from 
Quincy,  and  the  cost  was  met  by  popular  subscription. 
Roundabout  are  city  streets  solidly  lined  with  buildings. 
Aside  from  Bunker  Hill,  one  of  Charlestown's  most 
notable  claims  to  distinction  is  the  fact  that  Samuel 


Bunker  Hill  Monument 


Boston,   Old  and   New  y^ 

Morse,  the  inventor  of  the  telegraph,  was  born  there 
in  1 79 1.  He  became  a  leading  American  painter,  but 
was  interested  in  chemistry,  and  in  1832  began  devising 
apparatus  to  send  electric  messages.  Three  years  later 
he  exhibited  the  telegraph,  operating  with  half  a  mile 
of  wire.  After  struggling  along  under  serious  privations 
for  eight  years  more,  he  succeeded  in  getting  an  appro- 
priation from  Congress  to  build  an  experimental  line 
between  Washington  and  Baltimore.  The  number 
and  character  of  the  honors  heaped  on  him  in  recog- 
nition of  the  value  of  his  invention  have  probably 
never  been  equalled  in  the  case  of  any  other  Amer- 
ican. 

Within  a  ten-mile  circle  drawn  around  Boston  dwell 
half  the  inhabitants  of  the  "Old  Bay  State,"  and  they 
constitute  one-fourth  of  the  entire  population  of  New 
England.  Boston  is  an  important  manufacturing 
city.  It  is  the  greatest  American  market  for  leather 
and  leather  goods.  As  a  wool  market  it  is  unsurpassed 
except  by  London,  and  wool  is  brought  there  in  immense 
quantities  from  all  over  the  world. 

The  older  business  part  of  the  city  is  a  maze  of  narrow 
crooked  streets  in  which  the  stranger  easily  loses  his 
way.  These  streets  are  said  to  follow  the  routes  of  the 
old  lanes  and  cow  paths  that  were  made  when  the  place 
was  a  country  village. 

In  the  adjacent  region  are  many  beautiful  suburban 
towns.  The  finest  of  these  is  Brookline,  which  is  a 
paradise  of  splendid  estates.     In  the  early,  days  its 


76 


New   England 


name  was  Muddy  River,  and  the  Boston  merchants 
pastured  their  swine  and  cows  there  in  the  summer. 

The  city  has  suffered  from  various  serious  fires. 
In  its  first  century  it  had  a  "great  fire"  about  once  in 
ten  years  on  an  average.  But  its  most  notable  fire 
disaster  occurred  in  November,   1872.     The  fire  was 


'J  liL  Bunion  ruhlic  Library 


started  in  the  early  morning  by  a  spark  snapped  from  a 
furnace  in  the  business  section.  The  horses  of  the  fire 
department  were  sick  with  a  distemper,  which  was  a 
great  handicap  to  the  department's  efficiency.  Sixty- 
five  acres  were  burned  over,  nearly  eight  hundred 
buildings  were  destroyed,  there  were  thirteen  deaths, 
and  the  property  loss  was  seventy  million  dollars. 


Boston,   Old  and   New 


11 


The  city  is  an  almost  ideal  seaport.  It  lies  well 
back  in  a  bay  that  is  protected  from  the  ocean  storms 
by  two  long  slender  arms  of  the  land,  one  reaching 
southward  and  the  other  northward,  with  a  deep 
channel  between.  On  the  outer  side  of  the  northward- 
reaching  peninsula  is  Nantasket  Beach,  the  most 
popular  of  Boston's  seashore  resorts.  When  the  white 
men  came  it  was  the  playground  of  the  savages.  The 
Indians  would  erect  a  pole  on  the  beach,  and  hang  it 
with  beaver  skins ;  and  the  swarthy  braves  ran  races 
and  played  football  to  win  these  trophies.  Their  wild 
shouts  could  be  heard  above  the  roar  of  the  breakers. 


Boston  Light.     Here  was  erected  in  1710  the  first  American 
lighthouse.     The  present  tower  was  built  in  1783 

The  harbor  is  dotted  with  islands.     One  little  island 
near  the  entrance  is  known  as  Nix's  Mate,  and  on  it 


78  New  England 

there  used  to  be  a  gibbet  especially  for  pirates.  Most  of 
them,  after  they  had  been  hung,  were  buried  on  the 
island  in  the  sand,  but  whenever  a  ringleader  paid  the 
penalty  of  his  villainy  here,  he  was  left  hanging  in 
irons  from  the  gibbet,  so  that  sailors  coming  into  port 
would  see  the  skeleton  and  take  warning. 

The  best-known  episode  in  the  harbor's  history 
is  that  of  the  Boston  Tea  Party.  The  British  govern- 
ment was  trying  to  force  the  Americans  to  pay  taxes 
on  the  tea  that  was  imported.  But  the  Americans 
insisted  that  they  could  not  be  taxed  without  their 
consent.  Many  of  them  stopped  drinking  the  foreign 
tea,  and  they  would  not  use  any  kind  of  goods  manu- 
factured in  Britain  on  which  a  tax  was  collected. 
They  dressed  in  American  homespun,  and  drank  only 
tea  that  was  smuggled  in  from  Holland,  or  that  which 
was  made  of  sage,  sassafras  roots,  and  other  things  from 
their  own  gardens  and  woodlands. 

On  December  16,  1773,  seven  thousand  people 
gathered  in  and  around  the  Old  South  Meeting-house 
to  protest  against  the  landing  of  the  cargoes  of  three 
tea-laden  ships  which  had  recently  arrived  in  the  harbor 
and  lay  beside  what  is  now  the  Liverpool  Wharf. 
The  meeting  was  still  in  session  at  five  o'clock  in  the 
afternoon,  and  candles  had  been  lighted.  A  last  appeal 
was  sent  to  the  governor,  and  he  refused  to  act. 

Meanwhile  one  hundred  men  had  smeared  their 
faces  with  soot  in  a  neighboring  tavern,  and  befeathered 
themselves  like  savage  warriors.     Now  they  appeared 


Boston,   Old  and  New  79 

outside  of  the  meeting-house  and  gave  a  tremendous 
war-whoop.  The  people  at  once  poured  forth  and  saw 
the  Indians  hurrying  down  Milk  Street  toward  the 
harbor,  brandishing  hatchets  and  shouting  as  they  ran 
along.     The  crowd  followed. 

It  was  a  moonlit  evening,  and  the  Indians  had  no 
difficulty  in  seeing  to  get  aboard  the  three  vessels. 
They  told  the  frightened  captains  and  crews  to  go  below 
and  stay  there,  and  the  ships'  people  dared  not  disobey. 
So  the  marauders  were  left  free  to  take  off  the  hatches 
and  get  the  tea-chests  up  out  of  the  holds.  Then  they 
broke  open  the  chests  and  threw  them  overboard,  or 
emptied  their  contents  into  the  harbor.  The  Indians 
and  onlookers  were  orderly,  and  there  was  little  noise 
except  for  the  blows  of  the  hatchets.  By  nine  o'clock 
the  work  was  done,  and  three  hundred  and  forty-two 
chests  of  tea  valued  at  one  hundred  thousand  dollars 
had  been  destroyed.  The  Indians  marched  back  to 
the  town  to  the  music  of  a  fife. 

There  ''vere  only  one  or  two  incidents  to  mar  the 
affair.  A  Charlestown  man  in  the  crowd  on  the 
wharf  thought  he  would  get  some  tea  to  carry  home. 
So  he  went  on  board  a  ship  and  slyly  stuffed  as  much  as 
possible  into  his  coat  pockets  and  inside  of  the  lining. 
An  Indian  named  Hewes  observed  what  he  was  doing, 
and  as  he  was  leaving  the  ship  sprang  forward  and 
grabbed  hold  of  his  coat.  The  man  made  a  jump  and 
left  his  coat-tails  behind  him.  Hewes  called  out  to 
tell  the  people  what  the  man  had  done,  and  every  one 


8o  New  England 

who  could  get  near  enough  helped  him  along  off  the 
wharf  with  a  kick.  The  next  day  his  coat-tails  were 
nailed  to  the  whipping-post  in  Charlestown. 

One  of  the  old  towns  that  has  been  annexed  to  Boston 
is  Roxbury,  so  called  because  much  of  the  land  in  it 
is  rocky,  and  originally  spelled  Rocksbury.  The  rocks 
are  a  kind  of  conglomerate  known  as  pudding-stone, 
for  which  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  accounts  as  follows : 

"In  Dorchester  there  lived  a  giant  who  had  a  wife 
and  three  children.  On  election  day  he  locked  them 
up  and  strode  away,  leaving  them  an  election  pudding 
to  eat.  They  were  very  angry,  and  instead  of  eating 
their  pudding, 

"They  flung  it  over  to  Roxbury  Hills, 
They  flung  it  over  the  plain  ; 
And  all  over  Milton  and  Dorchester  too 
Great  lumps  of  pudding  the  giants  threw. 

"Ages  have  passed  away  since,  the  lumps  of  pudding 
with  the  plums  in  them  have  turned  to  stone,  and 
there  they  lie." 

The  town's  first  minister  was  John  Eliot,  "the 
Apostle  of  the  Indians."  He  learned  their  language 
with  the  help  of  a  young  Pequot  who  had  been  taken 
prisoner,  and  presently  was  able  to  preach  to  them  with- 
out an  interpreter.  He  visited  all  the  Indians  in 
Massachusetts  and  Plymouth  colonies  and  lived  to  see 
twenty-four  of  them  fellow-preachers  of  the  gospel. 
In  one  of  his  letters  he  says,  "I  have  not  been  dry, 


Boston,  Old  and   New  8i 

night  or  day,  from  the  third  day  of  the  week  to  the 
sixth."  At  night  he  would  pull  off  his  boots  and 
wring  out  his  stockings,  and  in  the  morning  put  them 
on  and  continue  his  travels. 

No  other  missionary  had  such  an  influence  as  he 
over  the  savages,  and  he  did  what  he  could  to  have 
them  treated  justly  by  the  whites.  For  a  long  time  he 
was  engaged  in  translating  the  Bible  into  the  Indian 
tongue. 

Eliot  occasionally  preached  to  the  Indians  from  a 
rocky  pulpit  in  the  local  woods.  This  pulpit  was  on 
what  became  later  the  famous  Brook  Farm,  where  some 
of  the  most  notable  men  and  women  in  America  once 
lived  and  cultivated  the  land  and  their  brains.  Often 
a  party  of  them  would  resort  to  the  woodland  on  a 
pleasant  Sabbath  afternoon  in  summer  and  address 
each  other  from  Eliot's  pulpit.  It  was  canopied  by  a 
birch  tree  through  which  the  cheerful  sunbeams  sifted. 

People  used  to  laugh  at  the  spectacle  of  rustic 
philosophers  hoeing  out  wisdom  and  potatoes  at  the 
same  time,  and  the  neighbors  said  that  the  Brook 
Farmers  once  raised  five  hundred  tufts  of  burdock, 
mistaking  them  for  cabbages. 

The  story  is  told,  too,  that  on  washing  days  the  men 
were  likely  to  be  called  on  to  hang  out  the  clothes ; 
and  in  the  evening,  when  the  company  gathered  for 
recreation  and  began  to  dance,  the  clothespins  fell 
plentifully  from  the  masculine  pockets. 


A  quiet  evening  in  Gloucester  Harbor 
The   Fishermen 

LONG  before  the  interior  of  New  England  had 
been  at  all  thoroughly  explored  there  was  a 
large  fishing  industry  off  its  coast.  Hundreds  of  vessels 
came  across  the  Atlantic  to  these  waters  to  fish  every 
year  even  as  early  as  1600;  and  when  settlers  began  to 

82 


The    Fishermen  H3 

establish  themselves  along  the  shore,  they  were  fisher- 
men as  well  as  farmers.  Indeed,  many  of  the  settlers 
measured  their  crops  by  pounds  of  fish  and  barrels 
of  clams  rather  than  by  bushels  of  corn.  It  was 
chiefly  the  abundant  supply  of  cod,  mackerel,  halibut, 
shad,  salmon,  and  other  fish  in  the  ocean  and  the  rivers 
that  enabled  the  pioneers  to  escape  starvation. 

The  numerous  bays  and  inlets  and  streams  furnished 
good  spawning  grounds,  and  the  rocky  coast  and  shallow 
adjacent  waters  were  conducive  to  the  growth  of  sea- 
weed, among  which  the  fishes  found  a  plentiful  supply 
of  small  animal  food.  The  best-known  portion  of  the 
coastal  shallows  is  the  Grand  Banks  of  Newfoundland. 
On  this  ocean  highland  millions  of  dollars'  worth  of  fish 
are  caught  every  year.  New  England  has  over  sixteen 
hundred  fishing  vessels,  which  employ  twenty-two 
thousand  men.  Fish  used  to  be  abundant  near  the 
shore,  and  the  fishermen  could  catch  them  by  going 
out  in  small  boats ;  but  now  it  is  necessary  to  seek  them 
at  a  considerable  distance,  and  the  vessels  used  are 
large  and  staunch.  Some  of  them  voyage  as  far  as 
Greenland  and  Iceland. 

For  three  miles  out  from  the  shore  fishing  can  be 
done  only  by  boats  of  that  nation  to  which  the  shore 
belongs.  No  Canadian  nor  European  boats  can  fish 
within  that  limit  off  our  coast,  and  none  of  our  boats 
can  fish  inside  of  that  limit  on  the  coast  of  Nova 
Scotia  or  Newfoundland.  Outside  of  this  shore  line 
the  fishing  is  free  to  all  nations  alike. 


84  New   England 

Most  of  the  fishing  in  the  three-mile  strip  of  water  is 
done  by  single  fishermen  who  dwell  along  the  coast. 
Each  man  has  his  own  dory  and  is  out  on  the  sea  fishing 
every  day  when  the  weather  permits.  Very  likely  his 
home  is  simply  a  shanty  with  a  little  garden  near  it  by 
the  borders  of  a  cove  that  serves  as  a  harbor  for  his 
boat.  Early  in  the  morning,  perhaps  before  dawn,  he 
goes  out  in  his  boat,  with  a  sail  hoisted  in  the  prow,  if 
there  is  wind,  or  pulling  at  the  oars  if  no  breeze  is 
stirring.  He  examines  his  lobster  pots,  nets,  and 
trawls,  takes  whatever  he  has  caught  into  the  dory, 
and  does  such  rebaiting  as  is  necessary.  Most  of  the 
fish  caught  by  these  men  are  sold  fresh  in  the  towns  on 
or  near  the  coast. 

Gloucester  has  become  the  most  important  fishing 
port  in  New  England.  It  has  a  deep  and  spacious 
harbor,  and  is  conveniently  near  that  great  centre  of 
trade  and  population,  Boston.  The  fishermen  have 
always  been  notably  bold,  vigorous,  and  intelligent, 
ready  to  face  danger  and  the  severest  strain  of  toil. 
Through  long  and  hard  experience  they  become 
skilful  seamen  and  shipmasters,  and  in  our  wars, 
when  service  on  the  sea  was  called  for,  these  fishermen 
have  proved  of  great  value  to  their  country. 

The  demand  for  fishermen  to  go  on  cruises  from 
Gloucester  far  exceeds  the  local  supply,  and  many  of 
them  are  now  from  Nova  Scotia,  Newfoundland,  and 
even  from  the  Azores  across  the  sea. 

Fishing  on  the  Banks  is  largely  carried  on  by  fast- 


The  Fishermen 


8s 


sailing  well-equipped  schooners.  They  carry  fresh 
vegetables,  frozen  meats,  and  canned  goods  to  eat,  and 
the  crew  has  the  best  of  fare.  It  requires  three  or 
four  months  to  lay  in  a  cargo  of  cod.  The  decision  as 
to  just  where  a  schooner  shall  fish  depends  a  great 
deal  on  the  depth  of  the  water  and  the  character  of 
the  bottom.  By  constant  sounding  with  the  lead 
line  an  expert 
captain  gets  to 
know  the  realm 
beneath  the 
waters  very 
thoroughly. 
The  lead  has 
a  hollow  at  its 
lower  extrem- 
ity in  which  a 
little  grease  is 
inserted,  so 
that  a  sample 

of  the  sea  bottom  may  be  secured.  The  story  is 
told  of  a  certain  old  Nantucket  skipper  who  could 
invariably  tell  just  where  his  vessel  was  by  examining 
the  soil  his  lead  brought  up.  In  order  to  perplex 
him  his  crew  once  put  some  garden  loam  from  the 
home  island  in  the  cup  of  the  lead,  made  a  pretence 
of  sounding,  and  then  asked  the  skipper  to  name  the 
position  of  the  schooner.  The  old  fisherman  tasted 
the  dirt  on  the  lead  —  his  favorite  method  of  deter- 


A  fishing  schooner  on  its  way  to  the 
Grand  Banks 


86  New   England 

mining  its  individuality  —  and  suddenly  exclaimed, 
"Nantucket's  sunk,  and  here  we  are  right  over  Ma'am 
Hackett's  garden !" 

As  soon  as  a  captain  finds  satisfactory  fishing  ground 
he  drops  anchor.  If  the  fish  are  ver}^  numerous  and 
hungry,  the  men  may  fish  with  hook  and  line  from  the 
deck  of  the  schooner ;  but  usually  the  dories  are  hoisted 
overboard,  and,  with  two  men  in  each,  go  out  to  set 
the  trawls.  Only  the  captain  and  cook  remain  on  the 
vessel.  A  trawl  is  a  line  about  a  mile  long  from  which 
a  thousand  hooks  hang  on  shorter  lines  two  or  three 
feet  in  length.  One  man  pulls  at  the  oars,  and  the 
other  baits  the  hooks  and  drops  them  over.  At  each 
end  of  the  trawl  is  a  big  float,  and  these  floats  are 
marked  with  the  vessel's  name.  They  are  anchored, 
and  the  line  is  lowered  to  the  bottom.  In  fine  weather 
the  dories  go  out  early  every  day  to  take  up  the  trawls. 
A  boat  starts  at  one  end  of  a  trawl,  and  as  fast  as  the 
men  remove  the  fish  from  the  hooks  and  put  on  fresh 
bait  they  throw  the  line  overboard.  This  work  has 
to  be  done  with  bare  hands  even  in  freezing  weather. 

When  the  boats  return  they  are  swung  to  the  deck, 
and  the  fish  are  thrown  into  a  bin.  The  cleaning  and 
packing  them  in  the  hold  are  done  after  supper. 

Fishing  on  the  Banks  continues  all  the  year  round. 
The  region  is  chilly  and  foggy,  and  in  winter  its  dreari- 
ness and  danger  are  increased  by  frequent  gales  and 
snowstorms.  If  sky  or  sea  show  any  hint  of  threatening 
weather  while  a  schooner's  crew  is  out,  a  recall  signal  is 


The   Fishermen  87 

hoisted.  But  sometimes  the  gale  rises  so  suddenly 
that  one  or  more  of  the  dories  to  leeward  fail  to  get 
back.  The  strong  tides  of  the  Banks  and  the  shoal 
waters  help  to  pile  up  the  great  combing  seas,  and  not 
infrequently  a  dory  with  two  dead  bodies  in  it,  or 
empty  and  perhaps  tossed  bottom  up  by  the  waves, 
is  all  that  tells  the  story  of  a  lost  boat  and  its  crew. 
When  the  schooner  on  which  the  lost  men  sailed 
returns  to  port,  it  enters  the  harbor  with  its  flag  at 
half-mast. 

At  times  a  large  number  of  fishing  vessels  may  anchor 
near  each  other  on  a  favorable  fishing  ground.  Perhaps 
a  storm  arises,  and  an  anchor  gives  way  so  that  a 
schooner  drives  before  the  gale  against  another,  wreck- 
ing both  of  them.  Or  one  of  the  swift  steamships  that 
cross  the  Banks  on  a  voyage  between  America  and 
Europe  suddenly  looms  up  out  of  a  fog  and  crushes  a 
schooner  that  happens  to  lie  in  its  path. 

As  soon  as  the  fish  which  a  vessel  has  brought  to 
port  are  unloaded  the  captain  gets  a  check  for  them. 
A  fourth  of  one  per  cent  goes  to  the  Widows'  and  Or- 
phans' Fund,  and  three  quarters  of  the  balance  is  for  the 
fishermen  after  expenses  have  been  deducted.  Cap- 
tain and  all  share  exactly  alike  in  the  division  except 
the  cook,  who  is  given  ten  dollars  extra  because  the 
success  of  the  voyage  depends  more  on  him  than  on 
any  one  else.  If  he  is  not  kept  good-natured  he  will 
waste  food  and  fresh  water,  and  compel  an  early  return 
to  port. 


88 


New  England 


The  rest  of  the  money  is  turned  over  to  the  owners 
of  the  vessel.  They,  however,  give  the  captain  from 
three  to  ten  per  cent  of  it. 

A  vessel  usually  lies  in  port  only  two  or  three  days 
and  then  starts  on  another  cruise.  Some  firms  own 
dozens  of  vessels,  but  it  is  not  the  owners  who  go  forth 
on  them  after  fish.  They  equip  the  schooners  with 
the  necessary  apparatus,  and  send  them  out  one  by  one 
in  charge  of  a  captain  who  has  selected  a  crew.  It  is 
for  the  interest  of  every  man  concerned  to  work  effi- 
ciently to  make  a  profitable  voyage,  and  this  fishing 
industry  is  a  most  satisfactory  instance  of  cooperation 


"Old  Mother  Ann,"  on  Eastern  Point,  Cape  Ann 

between  labor  and  capital.     There  are  no  strikes,  and, 
in  spite  of  hardship  and  danger,  the  profits  and  the 


The  Fishermen  89 

independence  and  excitement  of  the  Hfe  offer  induce- 
ments to  engage  in  fishing  which  cannot  be  resisted, 

Hahbut  are  caught  with  hook  and  Hne  or  with 
trawls  much  as  cod  are,  for  both  are  fish  that  hve  at 
the  sea  bottom  and  cannot  be  taken  with  seines.  Some 
of  the  hahbut  weigh  several  hundred  pounds.  Most  of 
them  are  sold  fresh,  but  a  considerable  amount  of 
salted  halibut  is  smoked  by  being  hung  for  several  days 
in  smoke  houses  where  fires  of  oak  chips  are  burning. 

Many  of  the  schooners  leave  port  well  supplied  with 
ice  and  bring  back  their  fish  packed  in  it.  From  the 
vessels  the  fish  are  transferred  to  cold  storage  plants 
and  are  sent  away  in  refrigerator  cars  so  that  they  are 
kept  fresh  for  weeks  or  months.  Nearly  all  of  the  cod, 
however,  arrive  from  the  fishing-grounds  salted  in  the 
holds  of  the  vessels.  They  are  taken  out,  split,  and 
put  to  soak  in  hogsheads  of  brine  on  the  wharf.  Later 
they  are  spread  to  dry  on  flakes,  which  are  slatted 
benches  that  allow  the  air  to  reach  both  sides  of  the 
fish.  The  process  requires  about  a  week  and  reduces  a 
five-pound  fish  to  two  pounds.  After  the  fish  have  been 
thoroughly  dried  they  will  not  spoil  for  a  long  time, 
and  they  are  sent  away  to  be  sold  as  salted  codfish ; 
or  the  skin  and  bones  are  carefully  removed,  and  the 
flesh  is  packed  in  boxes  and  marketed  as  boneless  or 
shredded  cod. 

Another  important  food  fish  is  the  mackerel.  They 
swim  together  near  the  surface  in  large  schools  of  many 
thousands.     The  fishermen  cruise  about  after  them  in 


90  New   England 

their  swift  two-masted  schooners.  When  the  lookout 
sights  a  good-sized  school,  the  crew  leap  into  the  great 
seine  boats  and  extend  a  net  in  front  of  the  fish.  Then 
they  bring  the  ends  together  behind  the  school.  The 
upper  side  of  the  net  is  supported  by  cork  floats  and 
the  lower  side  is  kept  down  by  lead  weights.  The 
school  may  sink  and  escape,  but  all  hands  strain  at  a 
rope  which  passes  through  pulleys  at  the  under  edge 
of  the  net.  Soon  the  net  is  pulled  together  into  a 
great  pocket,  and  the  mackerel  are  entrapped.  The 
schooner  then  comes  alongside,  and  by  means  of 
dipnets  the  fish  are  taken  on  board. 

The  mackerel  are  pursued  by  larger  fish,  among  which 
the  swordfish  and  bluefish  are  the  most  valuable.  They 
disappear  in  winter,  and  where  they  go  is  a  mystery; 
but  the  next  year  they  appear  coming  shoreward  as 
the  surface  waters  get  warmer. 

When  a  vessel  goes  after  swordfish,  the  crew  locate 
their  prey  by  the  dorsal  fins,  which  appear  above  the 
surface  as  the  fish  swim  along.  The  moment  one  of 
these  fins  is  sighted  the  vessel  starts  in  pursuit,  and, 
when  close  enough,  a  man  on  a  little  platform  at  the 
prow  harpoons  the  fish.  Away  the  wounded  creature 
goes,  and  men  in  dories  follow  and  despatch  it.  Occa- 
sionally a  swordfish  turns  on  its  pursuers  and  jabs 
its  weapon  through  their  boat.  After  that,  they 
reach  their  vessel  as  best  they  can. 


-lime  Salem  merclianiman 


On   the   Massachusetts   Coast 


NEXT  to  Plymouth  the  oldest  place  in  New  Eng- 
land is  Salem,  "The  Witch  City."  It  was  begun 
in  1626  by  a  little  band  of  English  farmers  and  fisher- 
men, who  moved  to  the  spot  from  the  bleak  shores  of 
Cape  Ann.     Two  years  later  they  were  joined  by  Cap- 

91 


92  New   England 

tain  John  Endicott  and  a  hundred  adventurers  from 
England. 

At  first  the  place  retained  its  Indian  name  of  Naum- 
keag,  and  then  the  settlers  called  it  Salem,  which  means 
peace.  It  was  on  a  neck  of  land  between  two  rivers, 
and  the  colonists  crossed  the  streams  in  canoes  that 
they  made  by  hollowing  out  pine  logs.  The  canoes 
were  about  two  and  a  half  feet  broad  and  twenty  feet 
long,  and  in  them  the  settlers  would  sometimes  go 
fowling  as  much  as  two  leagues  out  to  sea.  Every 
household  had  one  or  two  of  these  water-horses. 

For  a  long  time  Salem  ranked  next  to  Boston  as 
the  largest  and  richest  place  in  New  England.  It  was 
a  great  seaport  and  a  centre  for  the  coast  fisheries. 
At  the  age  of  fourteen  the  Salem  boy  of  those  days  began 
sea  life  in  the  cabin  of  his  father's  vessel.  In  his 
twenties  he  was  likely  to  become  a  captain,  and  a 
score  of  years  later  he  retired  to  a  stately  mansion  in 
his  native  place.  Swarthy,  tattooed  sailors  with  gold 
rings  in  their  ears  were  seen  month  after  month  un- 
loading from  the  great  Indiamen  bales  of  merchandise 
fragrant  with  the  spicy  odors  of  far-away  lands.  Every 
voyage  of  these  big  ships  had  possibilities  of  perilous 
storms,  and  encounters  with  pirates  and  cannibals, 
and  their  going  and  coming  were  fraught  with  a  spirit 
of  mystery  and  adventure. 

Later,  when  the  Salem  shipping  had  declined,  some 
of  the  mariners  still  lingered  about  the  waterside  reeling 
off  the  saltiest  salt  tales  of  the  town's  grand  old  times, 


On   the   Massachusetts  Coast  93 

accompanied  by  a  shake  of  the  head  at  the  change,  with 
good  ships  and  warehouses  rotting,  and  nothing  but 
landlubbers  about. 

As  shipping  declined  manufacturing  came  in,  and 
a  large  business  has  developed  in  the  making  of  cotton 
goods,  machinery,  shoes,  and  lumber  products. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  of  Salem's  colonial  relics 
is  the  little  church  built  for  Roger  Williams,  who  came 
to  the  settlement  to  be  its  pastor  when  it  was  three 
years  old.  The  size  of  the  building,  17  by  20  feet, 
makes  one  somewhat  doubtful  of  the  familiar  state- 
ment that  everybody  went  to  church  in  those  times. 
It  was  not  only  a  house  of  worship,  but  the  place  where 
the  colonial  government  held  some  of  its  meetings,  and 
'  the  structure  was  also  used  for  a  watch-house.  When  a 
new  meeting-house  was  erected  the  old  one  served  for 
a  schoolhouse. 

Another  building  that  all  strangers  wish  to  see  is 
"The  Witches'  House."  This  was  the  residence  of  one 
of  the  judges  before  whom  appeared  for  examination 
those  poor  creatures  who  were  accused  of  being  witches. 
Belief  in  witches  was  at  that  time  quite  common,  and 
they  were  said  to  make  frequent  journeys  along  the 
coast  riding  on  broomsticks.  The  delusion  created 
more  turmoil  with  more  fatal  results  at  Salem  than 
anywhere  else  in  the  colonies,  yet  its  tragic  period  there 
lasted  only  about  six  months  in  the  year  1692.  The 
excitement  started  in  the  minister's  family  in  Feb- 
ruary.    His  two  little  girls  acted  strangely,  and  accused 


94  New  England 

an  Indian  woman  who  worked  for  the  family  of  be- 
witching them ;  her  husband  accused  others,  and  there 
was  a  great  uproar  in  the  place,  which  at  that  time  had 
only  seventeen  hundred  inhabitants.  Every  one  be- 
came suspicious,  and  those  whose  words  and  ways 
were  at  all  unusual  were  thought  to  be  either  afflicted 
by  witches  or  to  be  witches  themselves.  When  Bridget 
Bishop  was  being  led  through  the  streets  to  her  trial 
past  the  meeting-house  she  gave  a  look  toward  the 
building,  and  immediately  an  invisible  demon  entered  it, 
and  there  was  a  sound  of  tearing  which  made  the 
people  run  in  to  learn  the  cause  of  the  noise.  They 
found  that  a  board,  which  had  been  strongly  nailed  on, 
had  been  transported  to  another  part  of  the  building. 

This  Bridget  Bishop  was  the  first  witch  condemned. 
She  was  hung  in  June.  The  next  month  five  witches 
were  hung  on  one  day,  and  the  same  number  on  a  day 
in  August,  while  in  September  a  group  of  eight  were 
hung  together,  and  a  well-to-do  farmer,  eighty-one  years 
old,  was  put  to  death  by  placing  hea\y  stones  on  his 
body.  At  the  outskirts  of  the  village  was  a  hill  with  a 
bare  rocky  stretch  of  several  acres  on  its  summit, 
and  there  the  scaffold  was  erected  on  which  the 
witches  were  hung. 

No  more  persons  were  executed  after  September, 
but  early  the  next  year  many  were  tried  and  three  were 
condemned  to  death.  However,  in  May,  these  three 
were  set  free  in  a  general  delivery,  together  with  about 
one  hundred  and  fifty  others  accused  of  witchcraft. 


On   the  Massachusetts  Coast  95 

Salem  is  the  native  place  of  the  great  novelist, 
Nathaniel  Hawthorne,  and  the  house  in  which  he  was 
born  in  1804  still  stands.  Not  far  from  his  birthplace 
is  the  House  of  the  Seven  Gables  to  which  the  family 
moved  when  the  boy  was  four  years  old.  His  father 
had  recently  died  at  a  distant  port  while  on  a  voyage  in 
the  ship  Nobby,  of  which  he  was  captain.  Hawthorne 
was  so  shy  in 

hisyoungman-  ^  ...»      ^^        ~a^ 

hood  that  he 
seldom  went 
out  except  at 
twilight,  or 
only  to  resort 
to  the  nearest 
solitude,  which 
was  usually 
the  seashore. 
Even  after  he  '^^^  House  of  Seven  Gables,  where  Hawthorne 
once  lived,  and  which  he  immortalized  in  one 
was        famous  of  ^jg  ^^^^^^  famous  novels 

some  one  writ- 
ing of  his  appearance  at  public  gatherings  says,  "  He 
has  the  look  all  the  time  of  a  rogue  who  fmds  himself 
in  a  company  of  detectives." 

For  a  time  he  was  the  collector  of  the  port  and 
labored  daily  at  the  custom  house,  and,  though  it  was 
said  that  "he  never  could  add  up  figgers,"  he  on  the 
whole  performed  well  his  uncongenial  task. 

Salem,  like  many  another  American  city,  has  had  its 


96 


New   England 


great  fire.  This  started  in  a  leather  factory  early  in 
the  afternoon  of  June  25,  1914,  after  a  long  dry  spell. 
So  rapidly  did  the  flames  spread  through  the  building 
that  the  men  and  women  employed  there  barely  escaped 
with  their  lives.     Other  buildings  caught  on  fire,  and 

help  was  summoned 
from  a  score  of  neigh- 
boring places.  Buildings 
were  dynamited  to  stop 
the  flames,  tjut  the  wind 
spread  the  embers,  and 
when  the  fire  was  gotten 
under  control  late  in  the 
day,  it  had  swept  over  two 
hundred  and  fifty-three 
acres,  destroyed  nearly 
fourteen  hundred  build- 
ings, and  left  twenty 
thousand  people  home- 
less. Sixty  persons  were 
injured,  several  were  burned  to  death,  and  others  died 
from  excitement. 

Only  a  few  miles  from  Salem  is  Marblehead,  on  a 
bold  headland  that  reaches  out  into  the  sea.  It  has 
an  excellent  harbor,  and  its  inhabitants  were  fishermen 
for  many  generations.  Life  on  the  sea  produces  a 
hardy  race  and  a  peculiar  one,  and  the  old-time  Marble- 
header  was  recognized  by  his  manner,  gait,  and  speech, 
far  beyond  his  home  neighborhood.     The  houses  closest 


JSjathaniel  Hawthorne 


On  the  Massachusetts   Coast 


97 


to  the  sea  were  severely  plain  and  weather-beaten, 
and  were  jumbled  together  along  lane-like  streets. 
Other  houses  were  built  on  or  against  the  rocky  ridges 
which  extend  through  the  thickly  settled  parts  of  the 
town.  Some  of  these  would  run  up  the  face  of  a  rock 
two  or  three  stories  and  have  an  extra  story  on  top  of 
the  ledge,  or  would  start  with  the  front  at  a  ledge-top 
and  descend  several  stories  down  at  the  back.  Often 
long  flights  of  steps  up  a  succession  of  terraces  led  to  the 


i-'^^^lr-j 


MarldtlK'ad's  rock\-  shore 


house  door.  Most  of  these  picturesque  buildings  have 
disappeared  since  the  town  has  changed  from  a  fishing- 
place  to  a  manufacturing  centre  and  summer  resort. 


98 


New   England 


The  only  important  out  thrust  of  this  northern  coast 
is  Cape  Ann,  which  Captain  John  Smith  named  Traga- 
bigzanda  in  honor  of  a  Turkish  lady  whose  slave  he  had 
been  at  Constantinople. 

One  of  the  most  charming  of  the  old  coast  towns 
is  Newburyport,  at  the  mouth  of  the  Merrimack  River. 


Twr-i3(-!&tvsjsjai,im* 


Eagle  Head  and  the  shore  at  Manchester,  where  the  waves 
make  such  music  that  this  is  called  "  The  Singing  Beach  " 

A  very  appropriate  industry  of  the  ]:)lace  is  the  manu- 
facture of  silver  goods  in  colonial  designs.  The  town 
has  been  the  home  of  various  notable  men,  but  of 
them  all  "Lord"  Timothy  Dexter  was  the  most  pictur- 
esque. He  was  born  in  Maiden  in  1747,  and  as  a  young 
man  was  a  prosperous  leather-dresser  in  Charlestown. 
Presently  he  bought  a  mansion  in  Newburyport, 
and  after  he  had  moved  into  it  with  his  wife,  son, 
and  daughter,  he  adorned  the  roof  with  minarets  sur- 


On  the   Massachusetts   Coast  99 

mounted  by  a  profusion  of  gilt  balls,  and  painted  the 
walls  with  gaudy  colors.  In  front  of  the  house  he 
erected  rows  of  columns  fifteen  feet  or  more  high,  and 
on  each  placed  an  image  carved  in  wood.  There  were 
fully  forty  of  the  effigies,  and  they  included  Indian 
chiefs,  generals,  philosophers,  politicians,  and  states- 
men, with  now  and  then  a  goddess  of  Fame  or  Liberty, 
and  a  number  of  lions.  The  persons  represented 
had  their  names  painted  on  their  respective  pedestals, 
but  whenever  the  owner  of  this  wooden  museum 
chanced  to  take  the  notion  he  changed  the  names  and 
had  them  painted  over.  One  effigy  was  of  Dexter 
himself.  It  was  inscribed,  "I  am  the  greatest  man 
IN  THE  EAST." 

A  famous  commercial  exploit  of  Dexter's  was  the 
sending  of  a  lot  of  warming-pans  to  the  West  Indies 
in  one  of  his  ships.  They  were  about  the  last  articles 
that  would  be  needed  in  that  hot  climate,  but  the 
captain  took  off  the  covers,  fitted  these  covers  with 
handles  and  so  transformed  them  into  skimmers. 
The  pan  parts  he  called  ladles,  and  he  sold  both 
ladles  and  skimmers  to  the  sugar  manufacturers  at 
a  great  profit. 

Perhaps  the  oddest  thing  Dexter  ever  did  was  to 
publish  a  pamphlet  entitled  "A  Pickle  for  the  Knowing 
Ones."  As  a  whole  it  was  a  jumble  of  nonsense,  and 
it  was  entirely  without  punctuation.  He  gave  away 
thousands  of  copies.  The  lack  of  punctuation  was 
criticised,  and  in  a  second  edition  he  placed  a  page 


lOO 


New   England 


at  the  end  devoted  solely  to  punctuation  marks  with 
which  the  public  was  requested  to  "pepper  and  salt" 
the  text  to  suit  themselves. 

Several  noteworthy  places  on  the  coast  south  of 
Boston  remain  to  be  mentioned.  First  comes  Quincy, 
where  a  leading  spirit  among  the  pioneer  settlers  was  a 
man  named  Morton.  He  conducted  a  profitable  trade 
with  the  Indians,  but  he  and  his  fellows  devoted  their 
gains  to  rioting  and  drunkenness.  They  called  their 
village  Merrymount,  and  set  up  a  May-pole  eighty  feet 
high  about  which  they  drank  and  frisked  "like  so  many 
furies."  It  was  learned  at  Plymouth  that  they  were 
selling  muskets  to  the  Indians,  and  Captain  Miles 
Standish  came  and  dispersed  the  rioters,  and  Morton 
was  sent  to  England. 

Nearly  all  the  southwestern  part  of  the  town  is  a 
mass  of  granite  rock  that  rises  six  hundred  feet  above 

the  level  of  the 
sea.  Here  is 
one  of  the 
oldest  quarries 
in  the  country. 
Quincy  was 
the  birthplace 
of  two  presi- 
dents of  the 
United    States, 

Two  liouscs,  in  eacli  of  vvliich  was  Ijorn  a       J^^'^^         Aclams 
president  of  the  United  States  and     his     son, 


On  the   Massachusetts   Coast 


lOI 


John  Quincy  Adams.     The  simple  farmhouses  in  which 
they  were  born  are  not  a  stone's  throw  apart. 

When  the  elder  Adams  was  a  boy  he  had  to  study 
Latin  grammar,  and  he  found  it  so  dull  that  he  went 
to  his  father  and  told  him  he  did  not  like  study,  and 
wanted  some  other  employment. 

"Well,  John,"  the  father  said,  "then  you  may  try 
ditching." 

He  set  the  boy  to  work  in  a  meadow  back  of  the  house, 
and  at  first  the  change  seemed  delightful.  But  by 
night  John  would  have 
liked  to  quit  the  task. 
Pride,  however,  made  him 
continue  at  it  another 
day.  Then  he  informed 
his  father  that  he  could 
bear  the  abominable  ditch- 
ing no  longer,  and  that 
he  would  go  back  to  the 
Latin  grammar. 

The  great  Fore  River 
ship-building  works  are 
at  Quincy.  They  make 
steam  yachts,  steel 
schooners,  and  various 
vessels  large  and  small 
for  naval  use. 

Beyond  Quincy  is  Hingham,  which  has  a  very  in- 
teresting church  erected  in   1680.     This  is  the  oldest 


"The  Old  Ship,"  an  historic 
church  at  Hingham 


I02  New   England 

house  of  worship  in  the  United  States  now  in  use. 
One  interesting  item  in  its  history  is  the  fact  that 
the  parish  once  appointed  two  men  to  keep  its  porch 
from  being  needlessly  encumbered  with  women  on  the 
Sabbath.  The  building,  because  of  its  peculiar  struc- 
ture, is  called  "The  Old  Ship."  It  has  a  central 
belfry,  which,  in  addition  to  holding  the  bell,  served 
as  a  lookout  station.  The  bell  rope  dangles  down  to 
the  floor  in  the  centre  aisle  of  the  church. 


Minol'>  i.idgc  Lighthouse 

Eight  miles  southeast  of  the  entrance  to  Boston 
Harbor  is  the  most  famous  of  New  England's  light- 
houses. It  is  a  mile  and  a  half  from  land,  on  Minot's 
Ledge,  a  position  of  great  peril  to  incoming  vessels 
when  a  northerly  gale  is  blowing.     The  rock  on  which 


On   the   Massachusetts   Coast  103 

it  stands  is  thirty  feet  broad.  Only  for  a  short  time  at 
low  tide  does  the  top  of  the  rock  come  into  view.  The 
hrst  lighthouse  on  the  ledge  was  a  dwelling  supported  at 
a  height  of  fifty-five  feet  on  nine  solid  iron  shafts  that 
were  ten  inches  in  diameter.  This  stood  only  two  years. 
In  the  early  spring  of  1851,  during  one  of  the  heaviest 
gales  known  on  the  coast,  great  quantities  of  ice  ad- 
hered to  the  supports,  and  it  was  completely  wrecked. 
The  keeper  and  his  two  assistants  lost  their  lives. 

The  present  structure  is  a  tapering  round  tower  of 
dovetailed  granite  blocks  that  are  made  still  more 
secure  by  being  bound  together  with  heavy  wrought- 
iron  pins.  The  stonework  extends  up  eighty-eight 
feet,  and  is  solid  for  nearly  half  that  height.  Above 
the  solid  portion  are  the  apartments  of  the  keeper, 
consisting  of  five  rooms,  separated  from  each  other 
by  iron  floors.  At  the  very  top  is  the  light.  Two 
years  were  required  to  le\el  the  foundation  rock, 
working  from  April  i  to  September  15,  and  then 
only  when  the  tide  served.  The  first  stone  was  laid 
on  July  9,  1857,  and  just  four  stones  were  placed  in 
position  that  season.  In  1858  six  courses  were  laid, 
and  not  until  two  years  later  was  the  structure 
completed. 

As  we  go  on  down  the  coast  we  come  to  Greenbush, 
where  was  born,  in  1785,  Samuel  Woodworth,  author 
of  "The  Old  Oaken  Bucket."  There  can  be  seen  his 
boyhood  home  with  its  ancient  well-sweep.  The  poem 
was  written  in  181 7  when  he  and  his  family  were  li\ing 


I04  New  England 

in  New  York.  One  day  he  came  into  the  house,  poured 
out  a  glass  of  water,  and  drank  it  eagerly.  "The  water 
is  very  refreshing,"  he  said,  "but  how  much  more 
refreshing  a  drink  would  be  from  the  old  oaken  bucket 
in  my  father's  well  at  home." 

"Wouldn't  that  be  a  pretty  subject  for  a  poem?" 
his  wife  asked. 

At  this  suggestion  he  seized  his  pen,  and,  as  the 
home  of  his  childhood  rose  vividly  before  his  fancy,  he 
wrote  the  familiar  words.  Nothing  else  he  ever  wrote 
has  survived. 

One  of  the  famous  dwellers  on  the  Massachusetts 
coast  was  the  great  statesman,  Daniel  Webster.  In  his 
later  life  he  lived  at  Marshfield,  and  there  died  and 
was  buried  in  1852.  He  had  a  domain  of  over  two 
thousand  acres,  which  he  made  one  of  the  best  farms 
in  the  country.  He  stocked  it  with  blooded  cattle, 
herds  of  sheep,  and  fine  horses.  Gay  peacocks  strutted 
over  the  lawn,  and  he  had  guinea  hens,  Chinese  poultry, 
and  other  fowls.  He  embellished  the  grounds  with  a 
great  variety  of  trees,  many  of  them  grown  from  seeds 
of  his  own  planting,  and  there  was  a  flower  garden 
covering  nearly  an  acre  of  ground.  The  ocean  was 
only  a  mile  distant.  All  the  buildings  on  the  place 
associated  with  Webster  burned  in  1878,  except  a  little 
study  which  he  sometimes  used. 


In  the  luucn  al  XaiUuckel 


Nantucket  and  Marthas  Vineyard 

THE  town  of  Nantucket,  on  the  island  of  the  same 
name,  is  the  quaintest  place  in  New  England.  It 
is  comparatively  little  affected  by  the  changing  customs 
and  fashions  of  the  mainland,  and  has  an  indi\iduality 
and  flavor  of  the  past  in  its  life  and  homes  that  are 


io6  New  England 

all  its  own.  The  island  lies  well  out  in  the  sea  south  of 
Cape  Cod.  It  has  a  length  of  fifteen  miles,  an  average 
breadth  of  four  miles,  and  is  for  the  most  part  a  wind- 
swept moor  diversified  with  lagoons  and  ponds.  No- 
where does  it  rise  to  any  striking  height ;  and  the  trees, 
except  in  the  villages,  are  few  and  stunted. 

When  the  steamer  on  which  you  journey  to  the  island 
reaches  port,  you  observe  many  ancient  fish-houses 
on  the  wharves,  and  see  little  fishing- vessels  and 
power  boats,  dories,  and  pleasure  craft  on  the  water 
all  around.  The  town  huddles  about  the  harbor  on 
land  that  terraces  steeply  upward,  and  on  the  highest 
terrace  there  rises,  from  amid  the  roofs  and  chimneys 
and  the  green  foliage  of  the  shade  trees,  the  dominating 
tower  of  an  old  white  church  with  a  gilt-domed 
cupola. 

Some  of  the  town  streets  are  paved  with  cobblestones. 
Nearly  all  of  them  are  both  crooked  and  narrow,  and 
there  are  numerous  delightful  little  byways  and  footpath 
alleys.  The  houses  are  mostly  wooden,  with  sides  and 
roofs  of  shingles.  Many  of  them  were  built  by  old 
sea  captains  and  are  of  generous  size,  two  or  three 
stories  high.  In  years  gone  by,  when  the  house  walls 
were  painted  red,  green,  or  yellow,  and  the  roofs  were 
tarred,  the  town  must  have  been  even  more  picturesque 
than  it  is  now. 

The  first  settler  of  Nantucket  was  a  man  named  Macy, 
who  bought  the  island  from  the  Indians  for  a  small 
sum  of  money  and  two  beaver  hats.     He  had  previously 


Nantucket   and    Marthas   Vineyard        1 07 

"dwelt  in  good  repute"  a  score  of  years  in  the  Massa- 
chusetts town  of  Sahsburv  at  the  mouth  of  the  Merri- 


iji  Kalkhoil  Co.,  N.  Y. 


On  the  shore  at  Sconset,  Nantucket 


mac  River.  But  one  day  four  Quakers  stopped  at  his 
house  for  shelter  in  a  severe  rain  storm,  and  he  let 
them  remain  until  the  tempest  was  over.  Quakers 
were  persecuted  at  that  time  in  New  England,  and  it 
was  against  the  law  to  entertain  them.  As  a  result 
Mr.  Macy  was  heavily  fined,  and  he  resolved  to  "take 
up  his  abode  among  savages  where  religious  zeal  had 
not  yet  discovered  a  crime  in  hospitality."  With  two 
friends  and  his  family,  which  included  five  little  chil- 


io8  New   England 

dren,  he  went  in  an  open  boat  across  Massachusetts 
Bay,  rounded  Cape  Cod,  and  at  length  reached  Nan- 
tucket's sheltered  harbor. 

He  was  welcomed  by  the  numerous  Indian  popula- 
tion of  the  island,  and  he  built  a  house.  Soon  other 
families  came,  and  the  settlers  taught  their  faith  to 
the  savages,  who  presently  all  became  "Praying  In- 
dians." 

The  island  government  was  so  free  from  intolerance 
that  it  attracted  the  Quakers  to  seek  homes  there. 
Their  number  increased  until  the  majority  of  the 
inhabitants  were  of  this  faith. 

The  early  dwellers  of  Nantucket  and  other  places 
on  the  New  England  coast  used  to  keep  long  boats  in 
which  they  could  push  out  from  the  shore  and  give 
chase  whenever  they  saw  a  whale.  If  they  succeeded 
in  making  a  capture,  the  yield  of  oil  and  whalebone 
made  it  a  rich  prize.  But  the  whales,  which  for  a 
time  were  plentiful  in  the  near  waters,  became  m- 
creasingly  shy.  Ships  had  to  go  after  them,  and  longer 
and  longer  voyages  had  to  be  undertaken  until  vessels 
would  fit  out  to  go  to  the  most  distant  seas,  whence 
they  would  not  return  for  three  or  four  years. 

Nantucket  developed  into  the  chief  whaling  port  of 
America,  and  its  whaleships  in  their  voyages  visited 
all  the  waters  of  the  globe.  They  wandered  far  from 
the  lanes  of  commerce,  and  their  captains  discovered 
no  less  than  thirty  of  the  islands  of  the  Pacific.  One 
Nantucket  whaleship  was  lost  on  the  coast  of  the  Fiji 


Nantucket  and   Marthas  Vineyard        109 

Islands,  and  all  the  crew,  with  a  single  exception,  were 
murdered  and  probably  eaten. 

The  world's  whaling  industry  long  ago  began  to 
decline,  partly  because  of  the  decrease  in  the  number 
of  whales,  partly  because  of  the  discovery  of  petroleum 


\L-    WlUlicr  LjI'CVHOHIUI 


and  its  use  for  lighting  purposes,  and  very  few  American 
vessels  now  make  voyages  after  whales. 

In  the  heyday  of  its  prosperity  as  a  whaling  port 
Nantucket  had  ten  thousand  inhabitants.  The  is- 
land's present  permanent  population  is  less  than  three 
thousand.  But  there  is  a  great  inflow  of  summer  vis- 
itors. It  claims  that  it  is  one  of  the  best  of  the  nation's 
health  resorts.     To  be  on  Nantucket  is  like  being  on 


iio  New   England 

a  ship  anchored  in  the  ocean.  It  is  twenty-four  miles 
from  the  nearest  mainland,  and  the  air  cannot  help 
being  pure. 

One  custom  which  still  survives  in  the  old  port  is 
that  of  the  curfew.  Each  evening  the  bell  in  the  an- 
cient church  tolls  its  warning  for  everybody  to  get  off 
the  streets,  and  for  all  house  lights  to  be  put  out,  and 
for  people  to  go  to  bed.  There  is  also  a  "rising bell," 
as  it  is  called,  rung  at  seven  o'clock,  and  a  twelve  o'clock 
bell  at  noon. 

Two  watchmen  used  to  go  on  duty  at  the  church 
after  the  curfew  rang.  They  took  hourly  turns  in 
watching  from  the  tower.  If  a  fire  was  seen,  they  ran 
shouting  and  blowing  horns  through  the  streets. 

There  were  other  watchmen  who  served  as  a  sort  of 
night  pohce  force.  It  was  a  part  of  their  job  to  keep 
the  boys  quiet.  If  they  found  them  in  mischief,  there 
would  be  a  chase.  Each  watchman  carried  a  hook. 
It  had  a  handle  three  feet  long,  and  the  hook  was 
just  right  to  catch  a  boy  round  the  neck  or  slip 
round  his  leg.  If  a  boy  was  caught,  the  watchman 
would  give  him  a  few  raps  with  the  wooden  end  of  his 
hook  and  let  him  go.  These  watchmen  would  go 
through  the  streets  at  midnight  calling  out,  "Twelve 
o'clock,  and   all  is  well!" 

Until  a  few  years  ago  Nantucket  had  a  town  crier. 
He  went  about  the  place  crying  out  the  news  and  what- 
ever any  one  wanted  to  advertise.  This  is  something 
the  way  he  would  run  on  :  "  Oh,  yes  !  oh,  yes  !   there's 


Nantucket  and   Marthas  Vineyard        i  i  i 

been  a  fearful  flood  out  West.  Mississippi  River  all 
under  water  !  Big  murder  in  Chicago  !  Awful  news 
in  the  papers  to-day !  Steamer  will  leave  at  two  p.m. 
Here's  a  sample  of  Jones's  Soap  !  Does  any  one  want 
to  buy  watermelons?     Worth  ten  cents  this  week !" 

In  the  whaling  days  he  spent  a  good  deal  of  time  in 
the  tower  of  the  old  church  watching  for  returning 
vessels.  He  had  keen  eyes,  and  it  was  said  that  he 
could  see  farther  than  two  ordinary  men  put  together. 
When  he  sighted  a  whaler  coming  he  would  blow  a  horn 
and  hurry  to  tell  the  captain's  wife,  and  she  would 
give  him  fifty  cents  or  so.  Then  she  would  take  a 
spy-glass  and  go  up  to  the  roof.  The  old  houses  had 
platforms  perched  on  their  peaks  enclosed  by  strong 
railings.  These  were  reached  through  a  trap  door, 
and  served  as  lookouts  from  which  to  watch  the  har- 
bor and  the  incoming  and  outgoing  vessels. 

On  one  of  the  sandhills  back  of  the  town  is  an  old 
windmill.  It  was  built  in  1746  and  was  used  till  1892. 
Now  it  is  taken  care  of  as  a  relic  of  the  past.  The 
tips  of  the  arms  come  almost  to  the  ground,  and 
the  mill  has  two  doors  so  that  if  the  sails  happened 
to  be  whirling  across  one  of  them  the  other  could  be 
used. 

There  is  a  sharp  contrast  between  the  summer  live- 
liness and  winter  quiet  of  the  island.  At  times,  in  the 
cold  months,  the  field  ice  blows  into  the  harbor,  and 
the  steamer  may  stop  running  for  several  days.  Once 
the  island  was  thus  cut  off  for  three  weeks.     On  such 


I  I  2 


New   England 


An  old  Nantucket  wnidmiU 


occasions  supplies  of  kerosene  and  butter  and  some 
other  things  perhaps  get  low,  but  there  is  no  suffering. 

A  large  and  interesting  neighboring  island  is  Marthas 
Vineyard.  This,  of  all  the  coast  resorts,  is  said  to  be 
the  favorite  summering  place  of  school  teachers.  It 
used  to  be  famous  for  the  knitting  of  stockings.  In  the 
years  that  followed  the  Revolution  the  island  women 
knitted  fifteen  thousand  pairs  annually,  and  the  state- 
ment is  made  that  the  people  on  vessels  approaching 
its  harbors  could  hear  the  click  of  the  knitting  needles 
before  the  town  lights  hove  in  sight. 

There  were  stirring  times  on  the  island  when  we 
were  at  war  with  Great  Britain,  and  the  British  ships- 
of-war  were  prowling  about  its  shores.     One  of  the 


Nantucket  and   Marthas   Vineyard        i  i  3 

heroes  of  those  days  was  a  Mr.  Cousins,  who  lived 
where  Cottage  City  now  is.  He  would  have  liked  to 
be  fighting  in  the  patriot  ranks,  but  his  health  was 
too  delicate.  An  enemy  war  vessel  one  day  dropped 
anchor  off  shore  halfway  over  to  Cape  Cod,  and  Mr. 
Cousins  got  out  his  old  flint-lock,  proceeded  to  the 
beach,  and  began  to  blaze  away  at  the  vessel  in  right 
good  earnest.  He  knew  his  gun  could  not  possibly 
carry  a  bullet  so  far,  and  he  did  not  in  the  least  disturb 


Gay  Head,  Marthas  Vineyard 

the  enemy,  yet  all  day  long  he  continued  loading  and 
firing  as  rapidly  as  possible.  When  he  was  asked  why 
he  was  wasting  so  much  good  powder,  he  responded 
that  it  was  to  "show  his  colors." 


114 


New   England 


A  former  island  resident,  whose  home  was  at  the 
little  rustic  town  of  West  Tisbury,  was  Captain 
Joshua  Slocum,  author  of  "Sailing  Alone  Around  the 
World,"  one  of  the  most  interesting  accounts  of  real 
sea  experiences  e\-er  written.     The  voyage  which  is 

the  subject  of  this 
book  was  begun  in 
1895  at  Boston  and 
lasted  three  years. 
It  w^as  made  in  a 
little  vessel  that  the 
captain  built  him- 
self. The  Spray, 
as  he  called  it,  was 
thirty-seven  feet 
long  and  fourteen 
feet  wide,  and  the 
cabin  was  too  low 
to  stand  upright  in. 
Much  of  the  time 
the  wheel  was 
lashed,  and  the  boat 
steered  itself.  In 
the  fall  of  1907, 
the  captain  sailed 
away  in  the  Spray  for  South  America  to  explore  the 
Orinoco  River,  and  he  has  never  been  heard  of  since. 


Caplain   Slocum   on    the  Spray,  the 
boat  in  which  he  sailed  alone  around 
the  world 


"The  Angel  of  Hadley" 
The   Connecticut   Valley  in   Massachusetts 

THERE  are  many  well-tilled  farms  on  the  fertile 
lowlands  that  border  the  IMassachusetts  portion 
of  the  Connecticut  River,  but  more  important  than 
these  are  the  industries  in  the  thriving  commercial 
towns  and  cities. 


ii6  New   England 

Springfield  is  the  place  first  settled.  William  Pyn- 
chon  and  others  came  thither  from  Roxbury  in  the 
spring  of  1636  and  established  homes  after  buying 
the  land  of  the  savages,  to  whom  it  was  chiefly  valuable 
as  a  range  for  hunting  and  fishing,  and  the  gathering 
of  nuts  and  wild  fruits.  Mr.  Pynchon  remained  in 
Springfield  only  a  few  years,  but  his  son,  "The  Wor- 
shipful Major  John,"  was  long  the  leading  citizen  of 
the  valley  and  carried  on  an  extensive  trade  with  both 
the  whites  and  Indians.  Sometimes  he  sent  in  a  single 
ship  to  England  five  thousand  dollars'  worth  of  otter 
and  beaver  skins.  Other  skins  that  he  bought  were 
the  gray  and  red  fox,  the  muskrat,  the  raccoon,  the 
marten,  mink,  wildcat,  and  moose.  Most  of  them 
were  packed  in  hogsheads.  Many  of  the  skins  were 
brought  down  the  river  from  the  distant  North  and 
West. 

Another  early  notable  was  Deacon  Samuel  Chapin, 
and  one  of  the  city's  finest  art  treasures  is  a  statue  of 
him  by  St.  Gaudens,  showing  a  typical  Puritan  on  his 
way  to  church  with  a  big  Bible  under  his  arm. 

A  third  Springfield  worthy  of  the  period  was  Miles 
Morgan.  He  made  the  journey  from  the  Connecticut 
Valley  to  Beverly  to  marry  the  lady  of  his  choice, 
taking  with  him  a  packhorse,  an  Indian,  and  two  friends. 
After  the  wedding  the  horse  was  loaded  with  the 
bride's  effects,  and  she,  her  husband,  and  the  other 
three  made  their  way  through  the  forest  on  foot  to 
Springfield,   a  distance  of  one  hundred  and  twenty 


The   Connecticut   X'alley  117 

miles.  Morgan,  though  unable  to  read  or  write,  held 
many  important  positions. 

Like  numerous  other  New  England  towns,  Spring- 
field suffered  severely  in  King  Philip's  War.  In  Octo- 
ber, 1675,  the  Indians  burned  thirty-two  of  its  houses 
and  twenty-five  barns,  and  killed  one  woman  and  four 
men.  Only  fifteen  houses  were  left  standing,  and 
some  of  the  homeless  families  and  the  troops  who 
were  sent  to  the  town  spent  the  following  winter  in 
dugouts  and  in  cellars  rudely  roofed  over. 

The  Indians  retreated  after  their  assault,  and  the 
pursuing  whites  accomplished  little  except  to  take  a 
single  squaw  prisoner.  One  of  the  old  accounts  says 
she  "was  ordered  to  be  torn  in  pieces  by  dogs,  and 
so  was  dealt  withall." 

The  first  bridge  built  across  the  Connecticut  on  its 
broader  course  between  the  Sound  and  the  northern 
boundary  of  Massachusetts  was  erected  at  Springfield 
in  1805  after  years  of  agitation  and  considerable 
ridicule  of  the  scheme  by  local  wiseheads.  "You  might 
as  well  attempt  to  bridge  the  Atlantic,"  one  man 
declared. 

The  bridge  was  wooden,  but  was  not  roofed  over. 
Its  roadway  ascended  and  descended  with  the  curve 
of  the  arches  of  each  span.  It  was  painted  red.  When 
it  was  opened  there  was  a  procession,  a  prayer,  and  a 
sermon,  and  there  was  music,  ringing  of  bells,  and  a 
salute  of  seventeen  guns  fired  three  times.  After 
nine  years'  serxice  it  showed  signs  of  weakening  and 


ii8 


New   England 


was  replaced  by  the  big  covered  "Old  Toll  Bridge," 
which  still  stands.     Tolls  were  collected  until  1872. 

During   the   Revolution  various  munitions  of  war 
were  made  in  Springfield  —  at  first  in  shops  along  Main 


"The  Old  Toll  Bridge"  at  Springfield 

Street  and  in  some  of  the  barns,  but  later  these  public 
works  were  moved  to  a  ten-acre  square  on  a  broad 
hilltop  that  the  town  had  taken  for  a  training  field. 
Here  was  established  a  few  years  later  a  government 
armory,  and  in  the  Civil  War  the  factories,  by  running 
night  and  day,  attained  a  daily  output  of  one  thousand 
rifles. 

At  one  spot,  just  outside  the  Armory  grounds  on 
State  Street,  is  what  looks  like  a  quaint  old  gravestone. 


The   Connecticut   Valley  1 1  9 

It  is  curiously  decorated  with  the  sun,  moon,  and  a 
star,  and  some  other  objects,  and  it  is  inscribed  thus : 

Boston  Ro.\d 

This  Stone  is  Erected 

by  Joseph  Wait  Esq. 

of  Brookfield 

For  the  Benefit 

of  Travellers 

^D  1763 

Wait  was  a  merchant,  who  lost  his  way  in  a  snow- 
storm and  wandered  off  the  road  here.  He  put  up  the 
stone  to  save  others  from  a  like  experience. 

Not  far  from  this  stone  is  a  boulder  that  marks  the 
battle  place  of  Shays'  Rebellion,  January  25,  1787. 
In  the  unsettled  period  that  followed  the  Revolution 
there  was  little  money,  prices  were  high  for  what  farm- 
ers had  to  buy,  and  low  for  what  they  had  to  sell,  and 
imprisonment  for  debt  was  a  common  occurrence. 
Daniel  Shays,  who  had  been  an  officer  in  the  recent 
war,  began  drilling  the  disgruntled  farmers  of  the 
valley  and  presently  led  a  rustic  army  of  eleven  hundred 
men  to  seize  the  Springfield  arsenal.  A  small  but  well- 
armed  force  opposed  them  when  they  neared  their  goal, 
and  a  shot  from  a  howitzer  was  sent  into  their  midst, 
killing  four  of  them.  The  ragged  army  halted  ap- 
palled, then  fled  in  a  panic,  and  the  rebellion  was  com- 
pletely stamped  out  within  a  few  weeks. 

At  Springfield  is  published  the  famous  Webster's 


I  20 


New   England 


Dictionary,  and  the  Springfield  Re publicajt,  which,  many 
authorities  consider  unrivalled  in  its  daily  presentation 
of  the  news,  and  the  ability  of  its  editorial  comment. 
The  city  has  many  buildings  that  have  architectural 
charm,  and  takes  especial  pride  in  the  municipal  group 

with  its  tall  tower. 
Among  the  impor- 
tant manufactures 
of  the  place  are 
pistols,  railroad 
cars,  skates,  but- 
tons, and  art  goods. 
The  neighboring 
town  of  Westfield 
is  known  as  ''The 
Whip  City."  From 
it  come  ninety  per 
cent  of  all  the 
whips  made  in  the 
United  States.  It 
is  also  called  "The 
Pure  Food  Town,"  because  of  a  remarkable  crusade 
that  originated  there  to  stop  all  traffic  in  impure 
foodstuffs.  The  first  impulse  to  act  was  aroused  by 
the  effect  of  a  piece  of  poisonous  candy  on  a  child, 
which  was  observed  by  the  professor  of  chemistry  at 
the  Westfield  Normal  School. 

Another  near-by  place' that  has  won  a  title  of  its  own 
is  Holyoke,  "The  Paper  City."     Its  development  as 


Springlicld's  municipal  group 


The   Connecticut  Valley 


121 


a  manufacturing 
place  is  due  to  the 
power  obtained 
from  the  sixty-foot 
fall  of  the  river 
there.  The  first 
dam  was  completed 
in  the  autumn  of 
1848.  On  the  day 
appointed  for  clos- 
ing the  outlets  and 
letting  the  water 
fill  up  the  channel 
back  of  the  new 
structure,  throngs 
gathered  on  the 
river  banks  to  see 
the     show.       The 

story  of  the  occasion  is  told  in  the  following  despatches 
sent  to  Boston  to  the  head  officer  of  the  company  that 
built  the  dam : 

"  10  A.M.    Gates  just  closed  ;  water  fiUing  behind  dam. 

"12  M.     Dam  leaking  badly. 

''2  P.M.     Stones  of  bulkhead  giving  way  to  pressure. 

"3.20  P.M.     Your  old  dam's  gone." 

The  huge  mass  of  lumber,  stone,  and  earth  had  been 
torn  from  its  foundations,  and  a  great  wave  carried  it 
down  the  channel,  rolling  it  over  and  over  and  break- 
ing it  into  fragments. 


The  Westfield  Rivci 


I  22 


New   England 


A  second  and  more  scientifically  planned  structure 
was  completed  with  entire  success  the  next  year.  It 
furnished  what  was  at  that  time  the  greatest  water 
power  ever  known.  The  water  is  carried  through  the 
city  in  canals  on  three  different  levels.  It  flows  first 
into  the  highest  canal,  and,  after  turning  the  wheels 
of  the  mills  alongside,  passes  to  the  next  one  to  be  used 
again  by  a  second  series  of  .mills.     Finally,  after  serv- 


One  of  the  three  Holyoke  canals  with  cotton,  pai)cr,  and 
other  mills  beside  it 


ing  in  the  same  way  for  a  third  time,  it  escapes  into 
the  river  channel.  Paper  mills  predominate  in  Hol- 
yoke, but  there  are  also  great  cotton,  silk,  and  other 
mills. 


The   Connecticut  Valley  123 

A  few  miles  farther  up  the  river  is  the  attractive 
town  of  Northampton.  One  of  its  early  ministers 
was  Solomon  Stoddard.  The  Indians  in  their  forays 
never  attempted  to  harm  him,  for  they  thought  he 
was  "the  Englishman's  God." 

Once  Rev.  Mr.  Mix  of  Wethersfield,  Connecticut, 
journeyed  to  Northampton  to  call  on  Mr.  Stoddard. 
Not  long  after  he  arrived  he  asked  to  see  his  host's 
five  daughters.  They  were  called,  and  he  conversed 
with  them  for  a  few  minutes.  Then  he  asked  Mary  if 
she  would  marry  him,  and  said  he  would  smoke  a  pipe 
with  her  father  while  she  made  up  her  mind.  But  her 
answer  was  not  ready  when  the  pipe  was  finished, 
and  he  returned  to  Wethersfield.  However,  he  soon 
received  the  following  letter  : 

"Rev.  Mr.  Mix: 

Yes. 

Mary  Stoddard.^' 

Another  old-time  Northampton  story  is  of  a  resident 
who  was  so  saving  that  whenever  he  went  to  the 
meadow  to  work  he  would  stop  his  clock  from  running 
so  it  would  last  longer. 

Smith  College  is  at  Northampton,  and  within  ten 
miles  are  Mount  Holyoke  College,  Amherst  College, 
and  the  State  Agricultural  College. 

The  town  is  the  trading  centre  for  a  considerable 
region  of  hilly  farming  country  that  lies  westerly. 
In  this  hill  country,  at  Cummington,  the  poet  Bryant 


124 


New  England 


was  born  in  1794.  At  the  age  of  sixteen  months  he 
knew  all  the  letters  of  the  alphabet,  and  when  not 
quite  five  years  old  began  to  attend  the  district  school. 
About  the  time  he  was  ten  he  wrote  and  declaimed  a 
rhymed  description  of  the  school,  and  this  was  printed 


Smith  College  students  on  Paradise  Pond 


in  the  county  paper.  At  seventeen  he  wrote  "Thana- 
topsis,"  one  of  his  best-known  poems.  It  soon  found 
its  way  into  school-books,  was  quoted  from  pulpits, 
and  gave  the  author  a  national  fame.  He  studied  law, 
and  began  the  practice  of  it  in  the  little  town  of 
Plainfield  just  across  a  valley  from  his  own  home. 

Plainfield  has  another  claim  to  our  interest  in  the 
fact  that  Charles  Dudley  Warner  was  born  there  in 


The   Connecticut  Valley 


125 


1829.  His  "Being  a  Boy"  is  one  of  the  most  enter- 
taining descriptions  of  old-fashioned  New  England 
farm  life  ever  written.  The  experiences  he  wove  into 
the  book  were  partly  gained  at  Plainfield  and  partly 
at  Charlemont  in  the 
Deerfield  Valley,  where 
he  moved  when  he  was 
eight  years  old. 

East  of  Northampton, 
across  the  Connecticut, 
is^OldHadley."  When 
the  town  was  a  pioneer 
village  two  fugitive 
regicides,  Generals  Goffe 
and  Whalley,  were  hid- 
den for  years  in  the 
home  of  the  Hadlcy 
minister.  Once,  when 
the  town  was  attacked 
by  Indians  while  the 
people  were  at  church, 
General  Goffe  saw  from  his  window  their  skulking 
approach,  and  hurried  to  the  meeting-house  to  give 
the  alarm.  By  the  time  he  got  there  the  war-whoop 
sounded  and  the  savages  were  at  hand.  The  people 
were  thrown  into  great  confusion,  but  the  grave  gray- 
bearded  stranger  assumed  command  with  an  air  of 
authority,  and  under  his  direction  they  routed  the 
invaders.     Then   he  vanished,   and  for  a  long   time 


William  Cullen  Bryant 


126 


New   England 


afterward  the  people  believed  that  he  was  an  angel 
sent  by  God  for  their  deliverance. 

"Fighting  Joe  Hooker,"  the  most  notable  New  Eng- 
land general  in  the  Civil  War,  was  a  Hadley  boy. 

Another  valley  town  which  commonly  has  "Old" 
before  its  name  is  Deeriield.  Twice  it  was  practically 
wiped  out  by  the  Indians,  and  the  second  time  many 
of  its  inhabitants  were  carried  away  captive  to  Canada 
in  midwinter.  One  of  these  captives  was  the  little 
daughter  of  the  minister.  She  grew  up  among  the 
Indians  and  married  one  of  them  and  steadily  refused 


The  broad  sLiccL  at  Hadky,  one  mile  long  and  twenty 
rods  wide 


to  return  to  live  with  her  Deerfield  kindred.     A  garri- 
son house  escaped  the  torches  of  the  raiders.     Its  front 


The   Connecticut  Valley 


I  27 


door,  in  which  the  Indians  hacked  a  hole  with  their 
tomahawks  to  shoot  through  at  its  inmates,  has 
been  preserved 
among  the 
treasures  of 
the  remark- 
able museum 
of  antiquities 
that  the  town 
possesses.  In 
the  southern 
part  of  Deer- 
field,  beside  a 
sluggish  little 
brook,  is  a 
monument 
where  seventy- 
one  persons 
slain  there  by 
the  Indians  are 
buried  in  a 
common  grave. 
The  stream  has 
since. 

At  Turner's  Falls  occurred  another  desperate  battle 
with  the  Indians  in  which  both  they  and  the  whites 
suffered  severely.  It  was  in  the  spring  when  the  Indi- 
ans were  there  to  fish.  They  were  surprised  at  day- 
break while  asleep,  and  many  of  them  were  driven  into 


"Fighting  Joe  HootLer,"  the  most  notable 
New  England  general  in  the  Civil  War 

been  called   "  Bloodv   Brook"  ever 


128 


New   England 


the  water  and  were  swept  to  their  death  over  the 
falls.  But  Indians  came  from  other  camps,  and  the 
retreat  of  the  English  was  a  tragedy. 

A  few  miles  farther  up  the  river  is  Northfield,  or 
Squakheag,  as  it  was  originally  called.  At  the  out- 
break of  King  Philip's  War  it  was  on  the  far  frontier  and 

had  been  set- 
tled only  three 
years.  Here 
were  seven- 
teen thatched 
cabins ,  a 
church,  a  log 
fort,  and  a 
stockade  of 
rough  logs 
eight  feet  high 
pierced  with 
loopholes.  One  day  in  early  September,  while  some 
of  the  men  were  working  in  the  meadows,  a  band  of 
Indians  under  Sagamore  Sam  and  another  chief  known 
as  "One-Eyed  John"  assailed  the  town.  They  killed 
a  number  of  people  in  the  houses,  shot  down  the  work- 
ers who  attempted  to  make  their  way  from  the  mead- 
ows to  the  settlement,  and  burned  several  of  the 
dwellings.  But  they  could  not  capture  the  stockaded 
enclosure.  A  party  coming  to  the  aid  of  the  town  was 
ambushed,  and  nearly  all  of  them  killed.  The  heads 
of  the  slain  were  stuck  up  on  poles  by  the  wayside. 


An  old  house  that  survived  the  Indian 
attack  on  Deerfield 


The  Connecticut  Valley  i  29 

Soon  afterward  this  town  was  abandoned,  and  the 
savages  wiped  out  what  remained  of  it  with  fire. 
Presently  a  new  settlement  began,  but  shortly  after- 
ward suffered  the  fate  of  the  first. 

A  short  distance  south  of  the  town  is  Clark's  Island, 
which  has  a  curious  legend  of  Captain  Kidd.  We  are 
told  that  the  pirate  sailed  up  to  this  secluded  spot, 
and  he  and  his  men  brought  on  shore  a  heavy  iron 
chest  full  of  gold  and  jewelry  and  other  precious  loot. 
They  dug  a  deep  hole  and  lowered  the  chest  into  it. 
Then,  in  what  was  considered  the  proper  old-fashioned 
pirate  way,  one  of  the  crew  was  selected  by  lot,  killed, 
and  his  body  placed  on  top  of  the  loose  earth  that  had 
been  thrown  into  the  hole.  His  ghost  was  supposed 
to  haunt  the  vicinity,  and  to  forever  guard  the  riches 
from  audacious  treasure-seekers. 

From  time  to  time,  in  the  darkness  of  night  when 
the  gales  howled,  persons  are  said  to  have  seen  sailing 
up  the  stream  a  phantom  ship,  manned  by  a  spectral 
crew,  and  commanded  by  a  black-bearded  ghost  with 
the  familiar  features  of  Captain  Kidd.  Opposite  the 
island  the  anchor  was  let  go,  and  Kidd  in  a  boat  rowed 
by  four  sailors  went  ashore.  After  satisfying  himself 
that  the  plunder  was  safe  he  returned  to  the  ship  and 
sailed  down  the  river. 

Some  people  doubt  the  whole  story  and  ask  how 
Captain  Kidd  ever  navigated  his  ship  up  there  past 
the  rocky  falls. 


Greylock,  the  highcsL  Alassachusetts  mountain 
Beautiful  Berkshire 

BERKSHIRE  County  sweeps  straight  across  the 
western  end  of  Massachusetts.  It  is  a  district  of 
mountains  and  tumbled  lesser  heights,  and,  though  one 
or  two  of  its  valleys  are  broad  enough  to  give  a  sense  of 
repose,  even  there  the  blue  waves  of  the  encircling  hills 

'3° 


Beautiful  Berkshire 


131 


are  constantly  in  sight.  From  the  uplands  the  streams 
come  coursing  down  the  wooded  glens,  with  here  and 
there  a  foaming  waterfall,  and  they  go  on  through  the 
valleys,  still  swiftly  as  a  rule,  but  sometimes  broaden- 
ing into  a  pond  or  lake,  and  occasionally  are  set  to  work 
to  turn  the  wheels  of  a  mill. 

It  is  one  of  the  most  attractive  of  New  England 
resort  regions,  and  portions  of  the  county  are  famous 
as  the  summer 
playground  of 
millionnaires 
from  the  great 
cities.  In  other 
parts  farms 
predominate, 
some  of  them 
thrifty,  and 
some  of  them 
quite  other- 
wise. 

B  al anced 

Rock  is  the  county's  greatest  natural  curiosity. 
This  is  reached  by  a  pleasant  drive  northeasterly 
from  Pittsfield.  Its  height  is  eighteen  feet,  its  weight 
about  one  hundred  and  fifty  tons,  and  it  rests  on  one 
square  foot  of  surface.  Yet  it  is  so  evenly  balanced 
as  to  be  readily  swayed  by  a  man's  weight. 

In  the  northern  part  of   the  county  is  Greylock, 
3500   feet   high,  the   loftiest  mountain   in   the   state. 


Balanced  Rock,  which  weighs  one  hundred 

and  fifty  tons,  yet  can  be  easily  swayed  by 

a  man's  weight 


132  New  England 

Some  claim  that  it  was  named  after  an  Indian  chief  of 
the  vicinity.  Others  attribute  the  name  to  the  moun- 
tain's appearance  when  the  hoar-frost  of  autumn 
creeps  downward  from  the  summit,  touching  each  dark 
evergreen  with  silver  gray. 

Near  the  base  of  Greylock  is  the  busy  manufactur- 
ing city  of  North  Adams,  on  the  outskirts  of  which  is 
the  western  portal  of  the  Hoosac  Tunnel.  The  Hoosac 
mountain  range  separates  the  Connecticut  Valley  from 
the  valley  of  the  Hudson.  It  is  many  miles  across, 
but  at  one  point  the  Deerfield  River  flows  at  the  very 
foot  of  the  central  ridge,  and  then  goes  on  eastward 
to  the  Connecticut,  thirty  miles  away.  On  the  op- 
posite side  of  the  ridge  the  Hoosac  River  flows  west- 
ward from  the  foot  of  the  mountain  wall,  and  the 
valleys  of  these  two  streams  furnish  an  easy  route  for 
a  railroad.  Before  the  days  of  railroads  the  possibility 
was  considered  of  tunnelling  the  mountain  for  a  canal 
to  furnish  a  direct  avenue  of  easy  grade  between  the 
West  and  Boston. 

In  1842  a  railroad  was  completed  over  the  moun- 
tains farther  south,  but  the  grades  were  steep  and 
difficult,  and  two  years  later  work  was  begun  on  the 
Hoosac  Tunnel.  A  great  drilling  machine  that  weighed 
seventy-five  tons  was  used  at  first,  but  it  soon  broke 
down  and  was  sold  for  old  iron.  Then,  for  a  long 
time,  the  drilling  was  done  by  hand.  Afterward  a 
compressed  air  drill  was  invented  which  made  the 
progress  much  more  rapid.     The  men  worked  in  re- 


Beautiful    Berkshire 


133 


lays  of  eight  hours  each,  and  there  was  no  pause,  day 
or  night.  "WTien  the  work  was  in  full  swing  the  pound- 
ing of  the  drills,  the  rumbling  of  the  cars  carrying  away 
the  refuse,  and  the  explosions  made  a  noise  in  the 
narrow  passage 
that  was  terrific. 
The  drilling  was 
carried  on  from 
both  sides  of  the 
mountain,  and  the 
floor  of  each  tun- 
nel was  slanted 
slightly  upward 
to  allow  the 
water  which  came 
down  constantly 
through  the  roof 
to  flow  away.  A 
large  amount  of 
water  still  seeps 
into    the    tunnel, 

and   the  discharge   at   the   west  end   is  six  hundred 
gallons  a  minute. 

That  the  work  might  proceed  more  rapidly,  a  shaft 
was  sunk  from  a  hollow  on  the  height  to  the  level  of 
the  tunnel,  a  distance  of  over  one  thousand  feet,  and 
thence  the  excavating  was  pushed  in  both  directions. 
So  accurate  were  the  engineers  that  the  several  passages 
joined  with  only  a  few  inches  discrepancy. 


A  dweller  on  the  heights 


1 34  New  England 

The  first  train  passed  through  the  tunnel  in  February, 
1875,  but  much  still  needed  to  be  done.  There  was 
great  danger  from  falling  rocks,  and  to  make  the  roof 
secure  the  tunnel  was  arched  with  brick.  It  is  four 
and  three-quarters  miles  long,  twenty-four  feet  wide, 
and  twenty  feet  high,  and  is  equipped  with  a  double 
track.  The  original  estimate  of  the  cost  was  two 
million  dollars,  yet  the  actual  cost  was  over  fourteen 
million. 

At  the  time  the  tunnel  was  begun  it  was  the  biggest 
undertaking  of  the  kind  that  had  ever  been  attempted. 
There  were  many  accidents,  and  in  all  one  hundred 
and  ninety-five  lives  were  lost.  The  most  serious 
accident  was  in  the  central  shaft.  The  buildings  at 
the  top  caught  on  fire,  and  thirteen  men  down  below 
perished,  suffocated  by  the  smoke  of  falling  timbers. 

About  ten  miles  west  from  the  tunnel  is  Williams- 
town  and  its  famous  college.  The  chief  street  in  the 
place  is  probably  unexcelled  in  America  in  its  rural 
beauty.  It  is  impressively  broad,  there  are  noble 
trees  and  velvet  lawn,  and  on  either  side  are  college 
buildings,  some  modern  that  have  great  architectural 
grace,  and  some  with  the  simple  charm  of  age,  while 
roundabout  are  the  serene  blue  mountain  ranges. 

The  boundary  lines  of  Massachusetts,  Vermont,  and 
New  York  meet  rather  romantically  in  what  is  called 
Moon  Hollow. 

As  we  go  southerly  down  the  county  we  come  to  the 
little   town   of   Cheshire,   which   once  produced   two 


Beautiful   Berkshire 


135 


hundred  thousand  pounds  of  cheese  annually.  It  was 
there  that  "The  Great  Cheshire  Cheese"  was  made 
and  sent  by  the  citizens  of  the  place  as  a  token  of  their 
admiration  to  Thomas  Jefferson,  then  President  of  the 
United  States.  The  cheese  was  one  day's  product  of 
the  town's  dairies.  Its  weight  was  1235  pounds,  and 
it  was  molded  in  a  cider  press.  Oxen  drew  it  to  Hud- 
son, New  York,  whence  the  rest  of  its  journey  was 


r 

> 

! 

«t 

1 

1 

^^.^ 

W   " 

■j^^^t*-. 

iM 

'^^ 

f 

•*-  ""  --^^ 

^ 

The  Hoosic  vallc\-  at  W'illiamslown 


by  water.     Mr.  Jefferson  sent  back  a  good-sized  piece 
to  the  inhabitants  to  satisfy  them  of  its  excellence. 

The  neighboring  town  of  Lanesboro  was  the  birth- 
place of  one  of  the  best  known  of  American  humorists, 
"Josh  Billings,"  as  he  called  himself.     His  real  name 


136 


New   England 


was  Henry  W.  Shaw.  After  he  became  an  author  he 
let  his  hair  grow  long  and  cultivated  oddity  in  his 
appearance.  He  always  spent  his  summers  in  Lanes- 
_  boro,     and     enjoyed     sitting 

^^  around    cracking    jokes    and 

^JHj^^  talking    to   congenial   friends 

^•'  W  and      acquaintances.       Both 

fame  and  fortune  came  to 
him  through  his  writing  and 
lecturing,  and  his  whimsical 
wisdom  and  fantastic  spelling 
will  long  be  remembered. 

Here  is  an  example  of  his 
writing,  which  is  part  of  a 
letter  describing  a  sojourn  in 
the  small  Berkshire  town  of 
New  Ashford : 

"Right  in  front  ov  the 
little  tavern,  whare  i  am 
staying,  rizes  up  a  chunk  ov 
land,  that  will  make  yu  feel 
weak  tew  look  at  it. 

"I  hav  bin  on  its  top,  and 

far  above  waz  the  brite  blue 

ski,  while  belo  me   the   rain 

shot  slanting  on  the  valley,  and  the  litening  played 

its  mad  pranks. 

''But  what  a  still  place  this  New  Ashford  iz. 

"At   sunrize    the   roosters   crow    all   around,    once 


"Josh  Billings,  '  one  of  ihe 
best-known  of  American 

humorists 


Beautiful   Berkshire  137 

apeice ;  at  sunset  the  cows  cum  hollering  home  tew  be 
milked;  and  at  twilite  out  steal  the  krickets,  with  a 
song,  the  burden  ov  which  seems  sad  and  weary. 

"This  iz  all  the  racket  thare  iz  in  New  Ashford.  It 
iz  so  still  here  that  yu  can  hear  a  feather  drop  from  a 
bluejay's  tail. 

"Out  ov  the  mountain  leaks  a  little  brook,  and  up 
and  down  this  brook  each  day  i  loiter. 

"In  mi  hand  i  hav  a  short  pole,  on  the  end  ov  the 
pole  a  short  line,  on  the  line  a  sharp  hook,  looped  on  the 
hook  a  grub  or  a  worm. 

"Every  now  and  then  thare  cums  dancing  out  ov 
this  little  brook  a  live  trout  no  longer  than  yure  finger, 
but  az  sweet  az  a  stick  ov  kandy,  and  in  he  goes  at  the 
top  ov  mi  baskit. 

"This  iz  what  i  am  here  for;  trout  for  breakfast, 
trout  for  dinner,  and  trout  for  supper. 

"I  hav  not  a  kare  on  mi  mind,  not  an  ake  in  mi 
boddy. 

"I  havn't  read  a  nuzepaper  for  a  week,  and  wouldn't 
read  one  for  a  dollar. 

"I  shall  stay  here  till  mi  munny  givs  out,  and  shall 
cum  bak  tew  the  senseless  crash  ov  the  city,  with  a 
tear  in  mi  eye,  and  holes  in  both  ov  mi  boots. 

"The  fust  thing  i  do  in  the  morning,  when  i  git  up, 
iz  tew  go  out  and  look  at  the  mountain,  and  see  if  it 
iz  thare.  If  this  mountain  should  go  away,  how 
lonesum  i  should  be  ! 

"It  is  now  9  oclk,  p.m.,  and  every  thing  in  New 


138  New   England 

Ashford  iz  fast  asleep,  inkluding  the  krickets.  I  will 
just  step  out  and  see  if  the  mountain  iz  thare,  and  then 
i  will  go  tew  bed  too. 

"Oh!  the  bliss  ov  living  up  in  New  Ashford,  cluss 
bi  the  side  ov  a  grate  giant  mountain  tew  guard  yu, 
whare  ever^^  thing  iz  az  still  az  a  boys  tin  whissell  at 
midnite,  whare  board  iz  only  4  dollars  a  week,  and 
everyboddy,  kats  and  all,  at  9  oclk  p.m.,  are  fast  asleep 
and  snoring." 

The  largest  place  in  Berkshire  is  Pittsfield.  Its 
first  settler  rode  over  the  hills  from  the  east,  with  his 
wife  on  a  pillion.  Another  early  comer  lay  for  three 
days  in  a  hollow  log  with  savages  about.  The  first 
settler  to  arrive  with  a  cart  had  to  hew  a  way  for  it 
through  the  woodland.  At  night,  for  fear  of  wild 
beasts,  he  tied  his  horses  to  a  tree  and  stood  guard, 
munching  apples  to  keep  awake.  The  wolves  lurked 
about  the  new  hamlet,  and  often  drove  the  sheep  close 
up  to  the  houses.  Sometimes  a  housewife  would 
shoot  one  of  them. 

At  the  time  that  Burgoyne  made  his  invasion  from 
Canada,  Pittsfield  had  for  its  minister  "Fighting  Par- 
son Allen."  He  went  with  the  Berkshire  troops  to 
Bennington  as  chaplain,  and  when  the  battle  began 
mounted  a  stump  and  exhorted  the  enemy  to  lay 
down  their  arms.  He  received  only  the  spiteful  re- 
sponse of  musketry,  and  he  left  the  stump,  seized  a 
gun,  and  did  valiant  duty  with  the  rest  of  the  troops. 

Not  far  from  Pittsfield  is   beautiful   Lake   Onata. 


Beautiful   Berkshire 


139 


Once  a  dweller  on  its  shore,  while  out  with  his  dog, 
hunting,  saw  a  fine  white  deer  stooping  to  drink  at  the 
margin  of  the  lake.  He  raised  his  gun  to  fire,  but, 
before  he  could  pull  the  trigger,  his  dog  howled,  and 
the  deer  faded  away.  There  is  a  Mohegan  legend  of 
such  a  deer  that  came  each  spring  with  the"  opening 
of  the  cherry  blossoms  to  drink  from  this  lake.  It 
was  the  Indian  belief  that,  so  long  as  the  snow-white 
doe  came  there  to  drink,  their  harvest  would  not  fail 
them,  or  pestilence  destroy  them,  or  fires  lay  waste 


P()ntt)()suc  Lake  near  IMttsticld 


their   country.     They   never   molested    the    creature. 
However,  at  last,  a  Frenchman  from  Canada,  who  visited 


140 


New   England 


them,  induced  a  warrior,  by  a  gift  of  fire-water,  to 
kill  the  gentle  deer.  He  set  out  for  Montreal  with 
the  skin,  but  was  slain  on  the  journey.     Never  after 

that  did  things 
go  well  with 
the  Indians. 

The  town  of 
Stockbridge 
was  originally 
laid  out  for 
their  accom- 
modation, and 
in  1737  a 
church  and 
schoolhouse 
were  built  for 
them  there. 
The  settlement 
gradually  in- 
creased in  size 
until  the  In- 
dians num- 
bered nearly 
five  hundred.  They  were  Christianized  by  John 
Sargent,  who  came  into  the  wilderness  of  southern 
Berkshire  at  the  age  of  twenty- four,  mastered  their 
language,  and  preached  three  or  four  sermons  a  week 
to  them.  In  1751  Jonathan  Edwards  settled  in  Stock- 
bridge  to  assist  in   the  task  of   converting  the  red 


>: 

If     '^Ife-^  :  ^ 

\  • 

^Kt^K^^^^\jr'  f"^           ^vR 

A 

»N\^ 

r           •■■--^ 

""'lyfet':  \ 

^BK^Kmis^^Xm       -'^^ 

^l^S^^' 

^^^^^^■«&l^Wc?T^t 

0^-*-^- 

~:^^  -y-A 

-;  ;2:^-^_ 

z:    ___-*■ 

^-'■/^ 

5?«e- 

■-^-'  ^'^^^^m^ 

^n 

T^ 

^m 

A  Berkshire  waterfall 


Beautiful    Berkshire  141 

heathen.  His  grandson,  the  notorious  Aaron  Burr, 
spent  a  part  of  his  boyhood  in  the  town.  The 
Indians  all  migrated  to  western  New  York  shortly 
after  the  Revolution. 

Cyrus  Dudley  Field,  who  laid  the  first  telegraph 
cable  across  the  Atlantic,  was  born  in  Stockbridge. 
His  father  was  the  minister.  Cyrus  had  three  brothers 
and  all  four  boys  were  mischievous.  It  is  said  that  their 
father  would  take  two  of  them  into  the  pulpit  with 
him,  while  the  other  two  sat  in  a  pew  with  their  mother. 
During  the  "long  prayer"  the  minister  would  pray 
with  a  hand  on  the  head  of  each  of  his  charges  "to  be 
sure  they  were  there." 

Stockbridge  and  Lenox  are  both  famous  summer 
resort  to^vns.  The  creation  of  beautiful  estates  at  the 
latter  place  began  about  1850,  and  now  there  is  not 
a  hilltop  nor  a  valley  but  has  its  splendid  houses  and 
far-flung  attendant  gardens,  and  each  mansion  com- 
mands some  natural  mountain  vista  of  great  beauty. 

At  one  time  the  vicinity  was  such  a  resort  of  notable 
writers,  who  had  either  permanent  or  summer  houses 
there,  or  came  thither  as  visitors,  that  it  was  called  "a 
jungle  of  literary  lions."  Among  the  rest  was  Haw- 
thorne, who  came  in  the  spring  of  1850  to  dwell  with 
Ijis  family  in  a  little  red  house  in  Stockbridge,  just  over 
the  line  from  Lenox.  Down  below,  in  the  valley,  was 
a  beautiful  lake,  and  roundabout  were  hills  and  moun- 
tains. WTiile  there  he  wrote  "The  Wonder  Book," 
which  boys  and  girls  have  read  with  delight  ever  since. 


142 


New   England 


Each  day  he  went  with  his  children,  Una  and  Julian, 
to  a  farmhouse  half  a  mile  distant  for  milk  along  a 
road  that  he  called  "The  Milky  Way"  ;  and  he  used  to 

play  with  them 
flying  kites, 
went  nutting 
and  climbing 
trees,  made 
boats  for  them 
to  sail  on  the 
lake,  took 
them  fishing 
and  flower- 
gathering,  and 
tried  to  teach 
them  to  swim. 
In  winter  he 
was  their  com- 
panion  in 
coasting,  and 
in  building  a 
palace  of  snow 
with  ice  win- 
dows. Yet  he 
was  so  shy 
with  strangers  that  he  would  jump  a  fence  to  avoid 
meeting  them  on  the  highway. 


The  old  white  church  in  Lenox 


The  Merrimack  above  Pawtucket  Falls 


Bay  State  Industries,  Places,  and  Famous  People 

MARKET  gardening  is  done  on  a  large  scale  near 
the  cities.  Many  of  the  market  gardeners  have 
big  glass  houses  that  are  heated  in  winter  so  that  crops 
are  growing  in  them  all  through  the  year.  In  the 
adjacent   fields  several  crops  are  raised  each  season. 

143 


144 


New   England 


As  soon  as  one  crop  is  marketed  the  ground  is 
ploughed,  manured,  and  harrowed,  and  another  crop 
started.     Planting,  cultivating,  weeding,  watering,  and 

gathering  these  mar- 
ket garden  crops  give 
employment  to  many 

' wSf-' "^   **^^^ ^  ^^         Onions,     tobacco, 

hay,  and  fruit  are 
important  crops  in 
some  sections,  and 
milk  has  to  be  pro- 
duced in  large  quan- 
tities to  supply  the 
city  dwellers.  Bos- 
ton requires  so  much 
milk  that  a  great 
deal  is  brought  to  it 
by  train  from  long 
distances. 

The  big  city  of  the 
central  part  of  the  state  is  Worcester.  It  was  much 
harassed  by  the  Indians  in  its  early  days,  and  for  a 
long  time  it  was  so  pestered  by  wolves  that  the  people 
were  deterred  from  raising  sheep.  The  occupations 
of  the  inhabitants  were  chiefly  agricultural.  Now  the 
place  is  a  great  manufacturing  city,  especially  noted 
for  the  making  of  nails,  screws,  needles,  wire,  different 
kinds  of  tools,  envelopes,  and  boots  and  shoes.     The 


The  City  Hall,  Worcester 


Bay  State   Industries  and   People        145 

most  extensive  wire  mill  in  the  world  is  in  Worcester. 
Here,  too,  is  the  richly  endowed  Clark  University. 

A  favorite  pleasure  resort  of  the  people  is  the  lake 
on  its  borders,  which  bears  the  resounding  Indian  name 
of  Quinsigamond.  This  name  is  a  combination  of 
words  which  mean  "the  fishing-place  for  long-noses" 
—  that  is,  for  pickerel. 

At  Spencer,  a  few  miles  west  of  Worcester,  was 
born  in  1819  the  inventor,  Elias  Howe.  After  he  left 
the  home  farm  in  early  manhood  he  worked  in  machine 
shops  in  Lowell  and  Boston.  A  chance  remark  about 
a  machine  to  do  sewing  set  him  to  thinking.  After 
many  years  of  experimenting,  poverty,  and  discour- 


A  lake  in  a  Worcester  park 

agement  he  evolved  the  sewing  machine,  which  he 
patented  in  1846.  At  first  he  had  uphill  work  to 
prove  that  it  was  practical,  and  that  he  was  its  real 


146 


New   England 


inventor.  But  at  last  he  reaped  the  financial  success 
which  was  his  due,  and  for  a  time  had  an  annual  in- 
come of  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  million  dollars.  In  the 
Civil  War  he  served  as  a  common  soldier,  and  on  one 
occasion,  when  the  pay  of  the  regiment  was  delayed, 
he  advanced  the  money  himself. 

Another  famous  Worcester  County  inventor  was  Eli 
Whitney,  who  was  born  at  Westboro  in    1765.      He 

contrived  the 
wonderfully 
simple  cotton 
gin  which  sepa- 
rates the  cotton 
fibre  from  the 
clinging  seeds. 
But  he  gained 
no  profit 
through  his  in- 
vention, for  it 
was  stolen  and 
involved  him  in  expensive  lawsuits.  Later  he  gave 
much  attention  to  the  improvement  of  firearms,  a 
factory  was  established  near  New  Haven,  and  his  in- 
genuity and  business  ability  brought  him  a  fortune. 

The  town  in  this  part  of  the  state  which  had  the 
severest  experience  in  the  Indian  wars  was  Lancaster. 
A  night  attack  in  February,  1676,  nearly  wiped  out  the 
settlement ;  many  persons  were  killed,  and  others  were 
carried  off  captive.     One  of  the  captives   was    Mrs. 


Mount  Wachusett 


Bay   State   Industries   and   People         147 


Rowlandson,  the  minister's  wife.  She  accompanied 
the  Indians  in  all  their  wanderings,  and  was  made  the 
slave  of  a  chief  named  Quinnapin.  Often  they  were 
destitute  of  food,  and  were  driven  to  boil  the  hoofs 
of  dead  horses,  or  to  procure  marrow  from  old  bones, 
and  eked  out  this  fare  with  groundnuts  and  the  tender 
buds  of  trees.  If  a  deer  or  a  bear  was  killed,  they  had 
a  ravenous  feast.  After  a  few  months  Mrs.  Rowland- 
son  was  ransomed. 
The  negotiating  was 
done  at  Redemption 
Rock  near  Wachusett 
Pond  in  the  town  of 
Princeton. 

Massachusetts  was 
the  leading  colony  for 
mining  and  manufac- 
turing iron  for  a  hun- 
dred years.  At  first 
the  iron  was  obtained 

largely  from  rusty  deposits  in  swamps.  The  farmers 
would  combine  to  establish  rude  forges  where  the  ore 
was  melted  with  charcoal  fires  and  cast  into  such 
articles  as  kettles  and  cannon,  or  hammered  into  bar 
iron.  Later,  richer  ores  were  opened  up,  and  pig  iron 
good  enough  to  be  used  for  edged  tools  was  produced 
in  furnaces.  The  iron  for  the  famous  Monitor,  which 
played  so  important  a  part  in  the  Civil  War,  came 
from  near  Mount  Grey  lock. 


Lancaster's  "  Great  Elm,"  which  at- 
tained a  girth  of  twenty-five  feet 


148  New   England 

Most  of  the  New  England  mines  closed  long  ago 
because  they  could  not  compete  with  those  in  Pennsyl- 
vania and  the  West.  Nevertheless,  iron  and  steel 
manufactures  that  require  little  metal,  but  much 
skilled  labor  and  exact  machinery,  still  flourish  in  New 
England.  For  instance,  over  half  the  tacks  of  the 
nation  are  made  in  or  near  Taunton. 

At  the  edge  of  the  water  beside  the  Taunton  River 
in  Berkley  is  the  famous  "Dighton  Writing  Rock," 
with  its  curious,  but  rather  indefinite  inscriptions. 
The  flat,  sculptured  face  of  this  granite  rock  rises  about 
five  feet  above  the  ground  and  is  eleven  feet  long. 
The  designs  were  on  the  rock  when  the  first  settlers 
found  it.  Some  have  thought  they  were  chiselled  by 
the  order  of  one  of  the  old  pirate  captains  to  mark  the 
site  of  buried  treasure,  and  the  shore  roundabout  for 
a  considerable  distance  has  been  all  dug  over  in  a 
vain  search  for  the  hidden  riches.  Others  think  the 
stone  was  marked  by  a  prehistoric  navigator  from 
Europe.  More  likely  it  commemorates  some  event 
in  Indian  experience. 

There  are  about  four  hundred  cotton  mills  in  New 
England.  They  make  such  things  as  sheets,  towels, 
stockings,  underwear,  thread,  string,  handkerchiefs,  and 
gingham  and  calico  dress-goods.  Over  a  thousand 
persons  may  be  employed  in  a  single  mill. 

The  cotton  is  brought  in  bales  from  the  Southern 
States  where  it  is  raised.  Each  bale  weighs  about 
five  hundred  pounds.     After  the  dirt  and  small  sticks 


Bay   State   Industries   and    People         149 

have  been  removed,  the  fibres  are  combed  out  straight, 
and  pressed  into  thin  gauze-hke  sheets.  These  are 
gradually  drawn  out  and  twisted  into  threads,  and 
then  the  threads  are  woven  into  cloth  by  the  looms. 

At  Fall  River  is  the  greatest  group  of  cotton  mills 
in  the  United  States.  The  Quequechan  River,  which 
flows  through  the  city,  has  a  fall  of  one  hundred  and 
thirty  feet  in  a  half  mile,  and  the  great  mills  crowd 
thickly  along  it.  More  than  two  miles  of  cotton  cloth 
a  minute  are  woven  in  these  every  working  day,  or 
enough  in  a  year  to  very  nearly  reach  to  the  moon  and 
back. 

The  neighboring  city  of  New  Bedford  is  also  famous 
for  the  number  and  size  of  its  cotton  mills.  This 
was  formerly  a  great  whaling  centre.  More  than 
three  hundred  whaling  vessels  sailed  from  it  in  a  year 
just  before  the  Civil  War. 

The  section  of  country  around  Fall  River,  and  the 
valley  of  the  Merrimack  are  the  two  most  important 
centres  of  cotton  manufacture  in  America.  Lowell  is 
called  "The  Spindle  City"  because  of  the  great  number 
of  spindles  in  its  big  cotton  mills.  The  Pawtucket  Falls 
furnish  power.  No  one  can  tell  for  how  many  successive 
years  the  Indians  had  resorted  to  the  falls  for  salmon, 
shad,  and  sturgeon  before  the  apostle,  Eliot,  came 
thither  "to  spread  the  net  of  the  Gospel  to  fish  for 
their  souls."  Every  spring  he  preached  to  them  on 
Massic  Island,  where  one  of  the  mills  now  stands. 

In  the  rude  early  days,  when  the  first  Lowell  cotton 


I  50  New   England 

mill  was  built  in  1813,  the  sun  aided  in  bleaching  the 
cloth.  Large  areas  of  it  were  pinned  to  the  grass,  and 
the  overseer's  w^fe  sprinkled  them  regularly  with  her 
watering-pot. 

For  several  decades  the  workers  in  the  spinning- 
room  were  Yankee  girls  from  the  farms.  One  of  them 
was  the  poet,  Lucy  Larcom,  and  in  intervals  between 
tending  the  shuttles  she  committed  verses  to  memory 
from  slips  of  paper  pasted  on  the  w^alls.  Later  the 
looms  were  watched  by  Irish  lasses,  and  then  by 
French  Canadian  girls.  Now  most  of  the  employees 
are  emigrants  from  continental  Europe. 

Do\^^l  the  river  is  Lawrence,  another  big  mill  city, 
and  a  few  miles  farther  on  is  Haverhill.  The  latter 
place  suffered  severely  at  the  hands  of  the  Indians  in 
a  raid  March  15,  1697.  They  carried  off  several 
captives,  one  of  whom  was  Mrs.  Hannah  Dustin,  who, 
with  a  woman  companion,  was  taken  up  the  river  to 
an  island  six  miles  above  Concord,  New  Hampshire. 
Here  was  the  home  of  the  Indian  whose  prisoners  they 
were.  The  Indian  family  consisted  of  two  men,  three 
women,  and  seven  children ;  and  there  was  one  other 
captive,  a  boy  who  had  been  carried  away  from 
Worcester,  the  previous  year. 

On  the  last  night  of  the  month  Mrs.  Dustin,  the 
other  woman,  and  the  boy  armed  themselves  with 
tomahawks,  and  killed  ten  of  the  twelve  Indians.  A 
lad  for  whom  they  had  a  fancy  was  spared  purposely, 
and  one  of  the  squaws  whom  they  had  left  for  dead 


Bay   State   Industries  and   People         i  5  i 

jumped  up  and  ran  with  him  into  the  woods.  The 
three  whites  took  what  provisions  there  were  in  the 
wigwam  of  their  master,  and  put  them  and  a  gun  and 
a  tomahawk  into  a  canoe.  They  destroyed  the  other 
canoes  and  embarked.  But  they  had  not  gone  far 
when  Mrs.  Dustin  decided  to  return  and  secure  the 
scalps  of  the  Indians  to  show  their  neighbors  at  home 
lest  their  story  should  not  be  credited.  So  back  they 
went,  got  the  scalps,  and  carried  them  to  the  canoe 


The  dam  at  Lawrence 


in  a  bag.  Then  they  proceeded  on  their  journey,  and 
did  not  pause  even  at  night,  for  while  two  of  them 
slept  the  other  managed  the  boat,  and  they  reached 
home  without  mishap. 


152 


New   England 


At  Haverhill  Whittier  was  born  in  1807  ^^  ^  simple 

Quaker  farmhouse,  and  the  dwelling  remains  to-day 

much  as  he  described  it  in  his  poem,  "Snowbound." 

Fully  half  the  nation's  boots  and  shoes  are  made  in 

Massachusetts.     Lynn   is    the    leading    city    for    this 

industry.  The  old- 
time  shoemaker  used 
to  travel  with  his  kit 
from  house  to  house, 
and  would  stay  in  each 
house  long  enough  to 
make  shoes  for  the 
entire  family.  He  sat 
on  a  low  bench  and 
cut,  sewed,  and  ham- 
mered with  much  the 
same  simple  tools  as 
had  been  used  for  the 
purpose  in  Europe  a 
thousand  years  before. 
To-day  steel  fingers 
have  taken  the  place  of  the  shoemaker's  hands,  and 
there  are  machines  which  will  sew  six  hundred  shoes 
daily,  and  some  that  put  pegs  into  the  soles  at  the 
rate  of  nine  hundred  a  minute.  About  one  hundred 
and  fifty  New  England  towns  have  shoe  factories  in 
them,  and  many  large  firms  make  special  shoes  which 
they  spend  much  money  in  advertising. 
The  first  American  watch  factory  was  established 


John  G.  WhiUicr 


Bay   State   Industries  and   People        153 

at  Shrewsbury,  near  Worcester,  about  1790,  and  since 
then  the  industry  has  developed  into  one  of  great 
importance  in  southern  New  England.  The  simplest 
of  the  watches  have  only  fifty-four  parts,  and  the 
finer  ones  nearly  two  hundred.  Watches  first  became 
practical  about  the  year  1500  when  a  German  invented 
the  mainspring,  and  an  Englishman  the  hairspring  and 
balance  wheel.      Waltham,   not   far  from   Boston,   is 


An  old-time  shoemaker 


famous  for  its  watches  all  over  the  civiUzed  world. 
The  business  began  there  in  1854  with  the  employment 
of  ninety  people,  whose  output  was  five  watches  a  day. 
Now  four  thousand  persons  are  employed,  and  produce 
daily  three  thousand  watches.     Some  of  the  screws  are 


154 


New   England 


so  small  that  a  lady's   thimble  will  contain  twelve 
thousand  of  them. 

Between  Waltham  and  Boston  is  Cambridge,  where 
is  located  the  oldest  of  our  country's  colleges.     It  was 


The  Harvard  Gate 


established  only  six  years  after  Boston  was  settled. 
Two  years  later  a  young  clergy-man,  John  Harvard, 
died,  and  left  his  books  and  half  his  estate  to  the  col- 
lege.    Forthwith  it  was  called  by  his  name. 

One  wooden  building  was  all  the  college  had  at  first. 
In  this  was  a  bare  hall  furnished  with  plain  substantial 
tables,  a  small  room  containing  John  Harvard's  books, 
and  a  few  chambers  and  studies.  Even  this  building 
was  thought  by  some  people  to  be  "too  gorgeous  for  a 
wilderness."     The  first  class   to  graduate   numbered 


Bay   State   Industries  and   People        155 

nine.  Many  gifts  were  received  to  aid  the  college, 
some  of  money,  some  of  books,  some  of  silver  or  pewter 
articles.  Live  sheep  were  sent  for  the  students'  food, 
and  homespun  cloth  for  their  clothing.  One  gift  was 
a  printing  press,  which  was  sent  across  the  ocean  from 
Amsterdam  in  1639,  and  was  the  first  in  America. 
The  earliest  book  to  be  printed  on  it  was  the  "Bay 
Psalm  Book."  The  few  copies  of  this  which  have 
survived  are  so  precious  that  collectors  are  glad  to  pay 
its  weight  in  gold  for  one. 

The  university  now  has  nearly  one  thousand  in- 
structors and  about  six  thousand  students,  and  a 
library  that  numbers  over  one  million  volumes.  In  a 
prominent  place  on  the  grounds  is  a  statue  of  John 
Harvard  seated  in  a  chair  on  a  broad  pedestal  of  stone. 
Many  pranks  have  been  played  by  the  students  with 
this  statue,  a  favorite  one  being  to  crown  the  figure 
with  a  pan. 

It  was  at  Cambridge  on  the  third  of  July,  1775,  that 
Washington,  after  an  eleven  days'  journey  on  horse- 
back from  Philadelphia,  took  command  of  the  Ameri- 
can army.  He  was  then  forty-three  years  old.  The 
troops  were  drawn  up  on  parade,  and  a  multitude 
of  men,  women,  and  children  assembled  to  look  on, 
many  of  whom  came  a  long  distance  in  all  sorts  and 
conditions  of  vehicles.  At  nine  o'clock  in  the  morning 
Washington  and  his  officers  mounted  their  horses  and 
rode  to  the  common.  The  day  was  warm,  and  they 
sought  shelter  in  the  shade  of  a  near-by  elm,  where  he 


156  '  New   England 

wheeled  his  horse  and  drew  his  sword  as  commander- 
in-chief  of  the  forces  of  the  United  Colonies.  The 
tree  still  stands,  though  much  decayed  and  shattered. 
Washington  had  his  headquarters  at  Cambridge  in 
a  large,  dignified  mansion,  which  later  became  the 
home  of  the  poet  Longfellow.     A  neighboring  colonial 


Longfellow's  house,  Cambridge,  which  during  the 
siege  of  Boston  was  Washington's  headquarters 

dwelling  not  far  away  was  the  birthplace  and  lifelong 
home  of  James  Russell  Lowell. 

One  other  Cambridge-born  notable  was  Richard 
Henry  Dana,  who,  when  a  youth  of  nineteen,  in  1834, 
undertook  a  voyage  to  the  Pacific  as  a  common  sailor, 
a  record  of  which  is  given  in  his  sea  classic,  "Two 
Years  Before  the  Mast."  In  later  hfe  he  became  an 
eminent  lawyer. 

A  long-time  resident  of  the  adjacent  town  of  Arhng- 


Bay   State   Industries   and   People         157 

ton  was  J.  T.  Trowbridge,  one  of  the  most  popular  and 
wholesome  of  authors  of  boys'  books. 

Farther  on  is  Lexington,  famous  in  connection  with 
Paul  Revere 's  ride  and  the  beginning  of  the  Revolution. 


One  of  the  Lexington  stone  walls,  such  as  served  to  shelter 
the  farmers  firing  at  the  retreating  British 

The  little  green  where  the  first  blood  was  shed  at  dawn 
of  April  19,  1775,  continues  unaltered  in  size,  and 
from  it  can  be  seen  several  dwellings  that  were  there  in 
colonial  days.  One  of  these  dwellings  is  the  Harring- 
ton house,  to  the  front  door  of  which  Jonathan  Har- 
rington, sorely  wounded,  dragged  himself  after  the 
fight,  and  died  on  the  threshold  in  the  arms  of  his 
wife. 

At  Concord,  a  few  miles  beyond,  provisions  and 
munitions  of  war  were  stored  in  every  farmer's  barn, 
the  town  house,  the  tavern  shed,  and  the  miller's  loft. 
But,  before  the  British  arrived,   there  was  time   to 


158 


New   England 


secrete  most  of  the  military  stores.  In  the  middle  of 
the  morning  occurred  the  fight  at  the  North  Bridge, 
and  the  British  retreat  began.  The  redcoats  were 
fired  on  from  the  shelter  of  buildings,  trees,  and  stone 
walls,  all  along  the  way  until  evening,  when  they 
reached  Charlestown  and  were  protected  by  the 
guns  of  their  fleet. 

\  In  its  associations  with  great  wTiters  Concord  is  the 
most  famous  town  in  the  United  States.  Not  far  from 
the  historic  North  Bridge  is  "The  Old  Manse,"  which, 


The  Concord  bridge,  where  the  baUk  Ijcgai 


at  the  time  of  the  Revolution,  was  the  dweUing  of  Ralph 
Waldo  Emerson's  grandfather,  the  Concord  minister. 
Emerson    himsjlf    became    a    resident    of    Concord's 


Bay   State   Industries   and    People        159 

Old  Manse  in  1835,  at  the  age  of  thirty-two.  He  be- 
lieved in  high  thinking  and  simple  living,  and  he 
made  some  attempts  to  work  on  his  own  land.  But 
his  infant  son  stopped  him  by  saying,  "Papa,  I  am 
afraid  you  will  dig  your  leg,"  and  he  surrendered  his 
hoe  and  spade  to  hands  more  skilled. 

He  was  not  too  serious  to  play,  and  would  sometimes 
go  skating  on  the  river  with  Hawthorne  and  Thoreau. 
Hawlhorne,  wrapped  in  his  cloak,  moved  like  a  Greek 
statue,  Emerson  leaned  forward  as  if  weary,  while 
Thoreau,  who  was  expert  on  skates,  danced  and  cut 
strange  figures. 

After  dwelling  two  years  in  the  Manse,  Emerson 
moved  to  a  cheerful  stately  house  on  the  opposite 
outskirts  of  the  village,  and  that  continued  to  be  his 
home  for  the  rest  of  his  life. 

Haw^thorne  came  with  his  bride  to  make  his  home 
in  the  Old  Manse  in  1843.  Besides  writing,  he  raised 
vegetables,  and,  in  domestic  emergencies,  washed  dishes 
and  cooked.  After  a  sojourn  of  three  years  he  moved 
away,  but  at  length  returned,  and  bought  and  re- 
modelled a  house  which  he  called  "The  Wayside." 

His  next  neighbor  to  the  south  was  Ephraim  Bull, 
the  originator  of  the  Concord  Grape.  Mr.  Bull  had  a 
passion  for  grape-raising,  but  none  of  the  varieties  he 
could  obtain  were  hardy  enough  to  be  relied  on  for  a 
crop.  Wild  grapes  abounded  in  the  vicinity,  and  by 
planting  selected  seeds  of  these  he  at  length  developed 
the  original  Concord  vine. 


i6o 


New  England 


Hawthorne's  nearest  neighbor  to  the  north  was 
Bronson  Alcott,  who  called  his  dwelling  "Orchard 
House."  There  his  daughter  Louisa  wrote  several  of 
her  famous  books  for  children. 

Henr)^  D.  Thoreau,  the  noted  nature  writer,  was  born 
at  Concord  in  1817.  It  was  his  custom  to  spend  a 
portion  of  each  day  in  the  fields  or  woods  or  on  the 
Concord  River.  He  knew  the 
country  like  a  fox  or  a  bird. 
Under  his  arm  he  carried  an  old 
music  book  in  which  to  press 
plants,  and  his  pockets  con- 
tained his  diar}',  a  spy-glass, 
microscope,  jackknife,  and  twine. 
If  he  saw  in  a  tree  a  hawk's  or  a 
squirrel's  nest  which  attracted 
him,  he  climbed  up  to  investi- 
gate, and  he  often  waded  into 
pools  after  water  plants. 
Once,  in  order  to  prove  that  a  person  could  provide 
himself  with  food  and  other  necessaries  and  live  com- 
fortably, and  yet  have  plenty  of  time  for  enjoyment, 
he  put  up  a  cabin  in  the  Concord  woods  beside  Walden 
Pond,  and  there  dwelt  for  two  years. 

The  spot  where  the  cabin  stood  is  marked  by  a 
cairn  of  stones  to  which  every  lover  of  Thoreau's 
genius  who  goes  thither  adds  a  stone  from  the  shore 
of  a  near  cove. 


Henry     D.     Thoreau, 

the     famous     nature 

writer 


DuLch  ruiiiL,  Harlford,  >>l.c.v  1  uiL  Hope  stood 

Connecticut   Beginnings 

THE  fertile  Connecticut  valley  did  not  long  escape 
the  notice  of  the  settlers  on  the  New  England 
coast,  and  in  the  autumn  of  1633  Ph'inouth  sent  a 
little  vessel  under  the  command  of  William  Holmes 

to  the  river.     In  the  hold  of  the  vessel  was  the  frame 
M  161 


l62 


New  England 


of  a  small  trading-house  and  boards  to  cover  and 
finish  it.  When  the  vessel  had  sailed  up  the  stream  as 
far  as  Hartford  the  crew  were  surprised  to  find  that  the 
Dutch  had  built  a  rude  earthwork  there  and  equipped 
it  with  two  cannon.  As  they  approached  this  port 
the  drumbeats  resounded  from  it,  and  the  cannoneers 
stood  with  lighted  matches  beside  the  two  guns  under 

the  banner  of 
the  Nether- 
lands. 

The    Dutch 
threateningly 
demanded  that 
Hohiies  should 
stop     or     the 
gunners  would 
fire.    But  they 
did  not  fire,  in 
spite  of  his  re- 
fusal  to   com- 
ply.    He  Went 
on  up  to  Wind- 
sor and    there   erected    the   trading-house.     A  garri- 
son   was    left    in    it,    and    the    vessel    returned    to 
Plymouth. 

By  1635  settlements  had  been  started  at  both 
Windsor  and  Wethersfield,  and  late  that  year  one 
party  of  sixty  men,  women,  and  children  from  the 
vicinity   of   Boston   marched   overland   by   compass, 


The  W'elherstk'ld  elm,  l\venty-se\'en  feel  in 
circumference,  the  biggest  in  New  England 


Connecticut  Beginnings  '      163 

driving  their  cattle  and  swine  before  them.  They 
were  overtaken  by  winter  while  still  on  the  way. 
When  they  arrived  at  the  river  they  built  rafts  and 
crossed  to  where  Hartford  now  is,  but  were  obliged  to 
leave  some  of  their  cattle  to  subsist  without  hay  on 
the  east  side.  Navigation  on  the  stream  was  com- 
pletely blocked  by  ice  before  the  middle  of  November, 
and  the  vessels  which  were  to  have  brought  the  set- 
tlers' household  goods  and  provisions  were  abandoned 
or  sailed  back. 

About  this  time  Lieutenant  Lion  Gardiner  with 
thirty  men  took  possession  of  the  river's  mouth.  They 
tore  down  the  Dutch  arms  which  they  found  there 
fastened  to  a  tree,  and  named  the  spot  "  Point 
Saybrook."  Then  they  built  a  wooden  fort  and  some 
houses,  and  set  up  a  palisade  twelve  feet  high  across 
the  neck  of  the  peninsula.  Gardiner's  young  wife 
came  from  Boston  to  dwell  in  one  of  the  houses  amid 
the  drifting  snow  before  the  palisade  was  completed. 

Meanwhile  the  condition  of  the  pioneers  at  the  set- 
tlements up  the  river  was  so  forlorn  that  many  of  them 
were  ready  to  abandon  their  new  homes  and  return 
to  Massachusetts  Bay.  In  December  a  party  of 
seventy  straggled  down  the  river,  and  twenty  miles 
above  its  mouth  found  a  ship  frozen  in  the  ice.  They 
went  on  board,  and  soon  afterward  a  warm  rain  set 
the  ship  free.  Sails  were  hoisted,  and  they  went  as 
far  as  Saybrook,  where  the  vessel  stuck  on  the  bar  and 
had  to  be  unladen.     The  unlucky  colonists  found  a 


1 64  New   England 

refuge  in  Lion  Gardiner's  fort  until  the  ship  was  afloat. 
Then  away  they  went  to  Boston, 

The  few  who  remained  at  the  up-river  settlements 
lived  on  scanty  supphes  of  corn  obtained  from  the 
Indians,  and  on  such  game  as  they  could  shoot,  and 
on  groundnuts  and  acorns  dug  from  under  the  snow. 
Spring  found  them  exhausted,  and  their  unsheltered 
cattle  dead,  but  many  more  people,  cattle,  and  sup- 
plies arrived  in  the  summer. 

Hartford's  first  houses  were  built  along  a  swift- 
flowing  "riveret,"  at  the  mouth  of  which  was  the 
Dutch  post,  Fort  Hope.  All  the  town  buildings  were 
small.  The  meeting-house  had  only  plain  hard  benches 
for  seats,  and  this  house  of  worship  and  its  successors 
were  none  of  them  equipped  with  stoves  until  about 
181 5.  From  the  very  first,  howeVer,  the  meeting-house 
had  a  bell.  There  was  probably  no  other  public  or 
church  bell  in  the  colonies  then  except  one  at  James- 
town, Virginia. 

The  Dutch  fort  soon  had  English  homes  all  around 
it  within  a  short  distance.  The  garrison  erected  some 
farm  buildings,  cultivated  a  little  land,  and  set  out 
cherry  trees  which  presently  produced  an  abundance 
of  fruit.  There  was  always  friction  between  the  gar- 
rison and  the  English.  Some  of  the  latter  began  to 
plough  up  land  near  the  fort,  and,  when  the  Dutch 
interfered,  cudgelled  them.  In  the  night-time  they 
seized  ground  that  had  been  made  ready  for  seed 
and  sowed  it  with  wheat.    Standing  peas  were  cut  down 


Connecticut   Beginnings  165 

and  corn  planted  instead.  They  shut  off  the  fort  on 
the  landward  side  with  palisades,  and  they  sold  a  hog 
which  belonged  to  the  Dutch  because,  as  they  said, 
it  had  been  trespassing  on  their  crops.  The  Dutch 
were  accused  of  insolence,  of  supplying  guns  and 
ammunition  to  unfriendly  Indians,  buying  goods  stolen 
from  the  English,  and  harboring  fugitives  from  justice. 
Yet  not  until  1654,  when  war  was  being  waged  between 
England  and  Holland,  were  the  Dutch  expelled. 

Trouble  with  the  Indians  developed  early.  A  trad- 
ing vessel  came  a  little  way  up  the  Connecticut  in  the 
summer  of  1634,  and  moored  close  to  the  bank.  It 
had  a  crew  of  eight  men,  and  two  captains  named 
Stone  and  Norton.  A  party  of  Pequots  visited  the 
vessel,  and  two  of  them  were  engaged  to  pilot  two  of 
the  sailors  in  a  skiff  to  the  Dutch  fort  at  Hartford. 
The  four  departed  up  the  river.  At  nightfall  they 
landed,  and  the  sailors  presently  lay  down  and  fell 
asleep.     Then  their  guides  killed  them. 

The  Indians  who  visited  the  vessel  were  entertained 
in  a  friendly  way  for  several  hours ;  but  by  and  by  the 
crew  went  on  shore,  and  the  savages  slew  them  and 
Captain  Stone.  The  other  captain  defended  himself 
with  his  musket  in  the  cook-room.  That  he  might 
load  and  fire  faster  he  emptied  a  supply  of  powder  into 
a  dish  close  at  hand.  Unfortunately  the  powder  caught 
fire,  and  there  was  an  explosion  which  so  burned  and 
blinded  the  captain  that  the  enemy  had  little  difficulty 
■  in  killing  him. 


i66 


New  England 


This  slaughter  and  other  depredations  led  to   an 
English  foray  against   the  Pequots  in  the  autumn  of 


©Kalkhosl  <      .    ,    j 

Saybrook  Point  Light  where  the  Connecticut  River  joins 
Long  Island  Sound 

1636,  and  then  the  Indians  went  on  the  warpath. 
The  fort  at  Saybrook  was  first  attacked.  They 
pestered  it  like  wasps,  and  Gardiner  ordered  that  no 
one  should  venture  out  to  fish  or  to  hunt  the  plentiful 
ducks,  geese,  and  turkeys.  Three  foolhardy  men  dis- 
obeyed orders  and  went  a-fowling.  When  they  were 
returning  loaded  with  game  the  Indians  captured  two 
of  them.  The  other  ran  to  their  boat  and  rowed  to 
the  fort. 

Gardiner  had  three  acres  of  ripening  corn  two  miles 
from  the  fort.  He  placed  five  lusty  men  with  long 
guns  to  guard  it,  and  they  saved  most  of  the  crop. 


Connecticut   Beginnings  167 

Sometimes  the  cows  returned  from  pasture  with 
arrows  sticking  in  their  sides.  All  the  buildings  out- 
side of  the  palisade  were' destroyed,  and  the  fort  was 
beleaguered  through  the  winter.  In  April  Captain 
Underhill  arrived  with  twenty  well-armed  men  from 
Boston. 

That  same  month  the  Pequots  attacked  Wethers- 
field,  killed  nine  of  the  English,  and  took  two  maidens 
captive.  The  garrison  at  Saybrook  espied  the  In- 
dians afterward  coming  down  the  river  in  three 
canoes  with  fragments  of  their  victims'  clothes  tied  to 
long  sticks  fluttering  like  flags.  Lion  Gardiner  fired 
the  fort's  "great  gun"  at  them,  but  they  were  not 
hit,  and  they  hastily  drew  their  canoes  over  a  narrow 
beach  and  escaped  before  he  could  fire  again. 

The  colony  was  now  fully  aroused.  Probably  it  did 
not  number  more  than  eight  hundred  souls,  yet  ninety 
men  were  summoned  to  go  against  the  foe.  They  were 
placed  under  the  command  of  Captain  John  jMason,and, 
on  May  loth,  they  and  seventy  friendly  Mohegans 
embarked  at  Hartford  in  a  pink,  a  pinnace,  and  a 
shallop  to  sail  down  the  river. 

After  several  delays  caused  by  running  aground  the 
Indians  insisted  on  being  set  ashore  to  make  their 
way  to  the  mouth  of  the  river  on  foot.  They  arrived 
at  Saybrook  some  time  before  the  vessels  came  and 
were  eager  to  go  at  once  in  search  of  Pequots  lurking 
in  the  neighborhood.  But  it  was  "the  Lord's  Day," 
and  they  were  held  back  until  Monday  dawned.     Then 


1 68  New  England 

they  sallied  forth,  and  presently  returned,  bringing 
five  gory  Pequot  heads  and  one  wretched  prisoner 
whom  they  killed  that  night  and  ate  while  they  danced 
and  sang  round  a  large  fire  they  had  kindled. 

The  Pequots  had  two  strongholds  near  the  mouth 
of  the  Thames  River  on  its  east  side.  Before  pro- 
ceeding against  them  twenty  of  Mason's  men  were 
sent  back  to  guard  the  settlements  up  the  river.  The 
rest  and  the  Boston  men  sailed  eastward,  but  did  not 
stop  at  the  Thames  River.  Instead,  they  kept  on  as  far 
as  Narragansett  Bay  with  the  hope  that  by  landing  there 
and  marching  back  they  could  surprise  the  Indians. 

The  Narragansetts  had  a  village  in  the  vicinity. 
They  were  enemies  of  the  Pequots,  and  the  English 
obtained  from  them  permission  to  pass  through  their 
country,  and  the  help  of  two  hundred  of  their  warriors. 
Thirteen  men  were  left  with  the  vessels  which  they 
were  ordered  to  take  to  the  mouth  of  the  Thames. 
The  others  pushed  forward  with  their  Indian  allies, 
and  toward  evening  of  the  second  day  came  to  a  field 
newly  planted  with  corn.  There  they  stopped  for  a 
while,  and  then  made  a  cautious  hour's  march  by 
moonlight  and  camped.  The  men  slept  with  their 
guns  beside  them.  Their  sentries,  who  were  posted 
some  distance  forward,  were  near  enough  to  the  In- 
dian fort  to  hear  the  revelry  of  the  garrison,  which 
lasted  till  midnight.  The  savages  had  seen  the  Eng- 
lish sail  past  some  days  before,  and  thought  they  were 
afraid  and  durst  not  come  near  them. 


Connecticut   Beginnings 


169 


Before  daybreak  the  English  were  again  on  the  march. 
Two  miles  of  an  Indian  trail  brought  them  to  a  pali- 
saded fort  on  what  is  still  known  as  Pequot  Hill 
near  the  Mystic  River.  A  part  of  the  EngHsh  stole 
up  the  hill  from  the  south  and  the  rest  from  the  north. 
There  were  no  sentinels,  and  the  garrison  was  sound 
asleep.  When  within  a  rod  of  the  palisade  an  Indian 
cur  barked,  and 
a  Pequot  war- 
rior shouted, 
"  Englishmen  ! 
Englishmen !" 

At  once  the 
assaulting 
party  fired  a 
volley  through 
the  log  de- 
fences. This 
was  answered  by  a  terrific  yell.  The  English  tore 
down  the  piles  of  brush  that  served  for  gates  and 
swarmed  into  the  fort.  But  the  Pequots  remained  in 
their  wigwams,  and  some  of  them  shot  from  the  doors. 
Mason  drove  them  out  of  one  wigwam,  caught  up  a 
brand  from  the  fire  inside,  and  applied  it  to  the  mats 
which  covered  the  framework.  Instantly  the  wigwam 
was  ablaze.  A  rising  wind  fanned  the  flames  and 
caused  them  to  spread  rapidly  through  the  fort. 

Soon  the  heat  was  so  intense  that  the  English  with- 
drew from  the  enclosure.     But  no  such  privilege  w^as 


On  Pequoi  Hill.     Here  the  Indians  had  a 
fort  that  the  whites  assailed  and  destroyed 


170  New  England 

allowed  the  Indians.  All  were  killed  or  burned  to 
death  except  seven  who  broke  through  the  English 
lines,  and  seven  who  were  captured.  There  were 
four  or  five  hundred  of  them  —  men,  women,  and 
children. 

Two  of  Mason's  party  were  killed  and  about  twenty 
wounded.  Some  of  them  were  saved  from  arrow 
wounds  by  their  neck-cloths.  A  piece  of  cheese  in 
the  pocket  of  another  stopped  an  arrow.  One  of  the 
officers,  who  saw  the  warriors  of  two  hostile  tribes  en- 
gaged in  a  battle,  on  a  later  occasion,  said  they  fought 
in  such  a  manner  that  neither  party  would  have  killed 
seven  men  in  seven  years.  Each  combatant  shot  his 
arrow  into  the  air  at  such  an  elevation  that  it  would 
drop  on  an  adversary,  but  the  person  aimed  at  usually 
took  the  precaution  to  step  aside. 

The  English  carried  their  wounded  to  New  London 
harbor,  half  a  dozen  miles  away.  Their  vessels  met 
them,  and  then  they  made  their  w^ay  to  the  mouth  of 
the  Connecticut  where  Lion  Gardiner  greeted  them 
with  a  salute  of  the  guns  of  his  fort. 

When  the  whites  departed  from  the  Pequot  country 
the  surviving  members  of  the  tribe  gathered  at  the  ruins 
of  their  stronghold  and  shrieked  and  tore  their  hair. 
The  next  day  they  held  a  council  and  decided  that  it 
was  impossible  for  them  to  resist  the  power  of  the 
strangers,  and  they  concluded  their  only  recourse 
was  to  all  emigrate  beyond  the  Hudson. 

They  therefore  burned  their  villages  and  supplies, 


Connecticut   Beginnings 


171 


and  set  out  on  this  desperate  venture.  Some  soon 
turned  back,  but  were  later  all  killed  or  captured  by 
whites  and  friendly  Indians.  The  main  body  of  the 
tribe,  after  crossing  the  Connecticut  River  far  enough 
north  to  avoid  the  English  at  Saybrook,  continued 
along  the  shore  of  the  Sound  in  order  to  get  a  daily 
supply  of  food  by  digging  shellfish.  They  travelled 
very  slowly. 

The  English  and  Mohegans  set  forth  to  follow 
them,  the  former  on  their  ships,  the  latter  on  land. 
From  time  to  time  they  overtook  stragglers  and  de- 
stroyed or  captured  them.  Near  Guilford  a  Pequot 
chief  and  some  companions,  when  closely  pressed  by 


New  London  Harl)or 


their  pursuers,  swam  across  the  harbor  from  the  end 
of  the  cape  on  its  eastern  side.     But  they  were  shot 


172  New   England 

as  they  landed  by  some  Mohegans  in  ambush.  The 
victors  cut  off  the  head  of  the  Pequot  chief  and  lodged 
it  in  the  branches  of  an  oak,  where  it  stayed  for  years. 
Since  then  the  spot  has  been  called  "  Sachem's  Head." 

The  remnant  of  the  fugitive  tribe  at  length  took 
refuge  with  some  local  Indians  whose  village  was  in  a 
swamp  a  few  miles  west  of  Bridgeport.  Their  pursuers 
surrounded  the  swamp  and  sent  in  a  call  for  surrender. 
In  response  the  Indian  villagers  and  the  Pequot  women 
and  children  gave  themselves  up.  About  one  hundred 
warriors  remained  in  the  swamp,  and  they  crept  to 
its  borders  and  shot  forth  their  ineffectual  arrows  at 
the  besiegers  all  the  following  night.  In  the  early 
morning  they  made  a  burst  for  freedom.  A  heavy 
fog  favored  them,  and  three-fourths  of  them  broke 
through  their  enemy's  line  and  got  away.  They  were 
pursued,  and  many  of  them  were  found  dead.  The 
fate  of  the  rest  is  unknown. 

The  prisoners  were  made  slaves,  some  of  them  in 
Connecticut  and  Massachusetts,  and  others  in  the 
West  Indies.  They  were  not  very  satisfactory  in 
servitude  to  their  masters,  and  they  seemed  to  be 
physically  unfitted  for  it,  for  few  of  them  survived 
long. 

Connecticut's  other  tribes  deeded  away  their  land 
with  more  or  less  celerity,  and  when  it  was  all  gone 
they  drifted  off  to  other  parts  of  the  country,  or  be- 
came town  charges. 


An  old-fashioned  tall  clock  in  a  counlry  home 


Industry   in   Connecticut 

NEARLY  all  the  interests  of  the  population  of  Con- 
necticut until  after  1800  were  agricultural.  By 
that  time  the  whole  commonwealth  was  dotted  with 
towns ;  and  in  the  heart  of  each  was  a  common,  a 
church,  and  a  group  of  wooden  houses,  usually  com- 

173 


174  New   England 

fortable,  but  often  unpainted,  and  seldom  representing 
even  a  moderate  degree  of  luxury.  Hartford  and  New 
Haven  were  the  only  cities,  and  neither  of  them  had 
four  thousand  inhabitants.  It  was  rumored,  some- 
what doubtfully,  that  the  leading  lawyer  of  the  state 
had  an  income  from  his  practice  of  two  thousand 
dollars  a  year.  There  were  few  persons  who  were 
ver^'  rich,  and  few  who  were  very  poor,  and  life  was 
equable  and  placid. 

An  important  crop,  almost  from  the  first,  was  to- 
bacco. Its  cultivation  was  officially  encouraged  as 
far  back  as  1640,  but  its  use  was  forbidden  to  any 
man  under  twenty-one,  unless  he  obtained  a  certificate 
from  a  physician  that  tobacco  was  good  for  him.  No 
one  was  allowed  to  smoke  or  chew  on  the  streets  or 
in  other  public  places.  Tobacco  has  ever  since  been 
extensively  grown  on  the  fertile  lowlands  where  the 
first  settlers  established  themselves.  Soil  and  climate 
both  seem  particularly  well  adapted  to  its  cultivation. 
The  amount  now  raised  is  thirty-five  million  pounds 
a  year,  but  this  looks  small  when  compared  with  the 
three  hundred  and  sixty-four  million  pounds  raised  in 
Kentucky,  the  leader  among  tobacco-growing  states. 

Much  tobacco  is  grown  throughout  all  the  eastern 
coast  region  of  our  country,  and  the  prosperity  of  the 
colonies  was  largely  due  to  the  foreign  demand  for  this 
crop.  Tobacco  was  unknown  in  the  Old  World  until 
after  the  discovery  of  America,  but  when  it  had  once 
been  introduced  there  its  use  spread  amazingly.     It 


Industry   in   Connecticut 


^IS 


is  one  of  a  number  of  important  plants  that  origi- 
nally were  found  only  in  America.  Some  of  the  others 
are   Indian   corn,   the   potato,   the    tomato,   and   the 


Cutting  tobacco 

cinchona  from  which  quinine  comes.  On  the  other 
hand,  America  only  contributed  one  animal  to  the 
domestic  uses  of  civilized  man  —  the  turkey. 

Connecticut  has  many  excellent  dairy  farms,  market 
gardens,  and  peach  orchards,  but  except  on  the  valley 
lowlands  its  soil  is  not  very  productive. 

One  of  the  state's  earliest  manufacturing  industries 
dates  back  to  1 740  when  a  man  named  Patterson  settled 
at  Berlin,  eleven  miles  south  of  Hartford,  and  began  to 
make  tinware.  For  a  time  he  was  the  only  tinner  in 
the  colonies.  He  would  make  up  as  much  of  the  ware 
as  he  could  carry  in  a  basket,  and  then  tramp  over  the 
surrounding  country  from  hamlet  to  hamlet  and  from 
farm  to  farm  selling  the  new  kind  of  utensils.     Pres- 


1 76  New  England 

ently  others  took  up  the  business,  and  gradually  the 
tinware  peddlers  made  their  way  to  all  parts  of  the 
country. 

Carrying  the  goods  in  hand  baskets  was  soon  aban- 
doned. Instead,  they  were  put  into  large  panniers  on 
the  back  of  a  horse,  and  later  two-wheeled  carts  were 
used.  Some  of  the  peddlers  are  said  not  to  have  con- 
fined themselves  to  selling  tinware  and  useful  '^Yan- 
kee notions,"  but  to  have  palmed  off  wooden  nutmegs, 
oak-leaf  cigars,  and  similar  frauds. 

The  four-wheeled  gay-painted  tin-peddler's  wagon 
finally  came  into  existence,  and  there  was  scarcely  a 
farm  home  in  all  New  England  which  was  not  visited 
by  them.  The  wares  were  usually  exchanged  for 
local  products  or  rags,  rather  than  sold  for  money,  and 
the  peddlers  were  sure  of  a  welcome,  especially  in  the 
sparsely  settled  sections.  Not  only  was  there  a  de- 
sire to  traffic  with  them,  but  they  were  an  important 
source  of  news  from  other  parts  of  the  region  and  the 
outside  world.  Often  they  were  men  of  superior  in- 
telligence with  a  shrewd  business  talent  that  in  some 
instances  won  them  fortunes  afterward  as  manufac- 
turers, merchants,  and  financiers.  The  old-time  Yan- 
kee peddler  was  a  man  worth  knowing. 

It  has  been  said  that  all  the  minerals  known  to  man 
may  be  found  in  Connecticut  in  just  sufficient  quan- 
tities not  to  pay  for  mining  them.  Prospectors  have 
pitted  with  shallow  holes  the  entire  range  of  sandstone 
hills  which  stretches  from  the  northern  part  of  the  state 


Industry  in   Connecticut  177 

down  to  New  Haven.  Some  of  them  discovered  a 
promising  vein  of  copper  in  1705,  sixteen  miles  north- 
west of  Hartford  at  what  is  now  East  Granby,  Various 
companies  spent  money  freely  mining  this  copper,  but 
got  little  of  their  investment  back.  After  nearly  three 
quarters  of  a  century  operations  ceased,  and  in  1773  the 
colony  fitted  up  the  mine  as  a  prison.  Its  first  keeper 
named  it  Newgate  after  a  famous  prison  in  London. 

The  main  opening  into  the  mine  was  near  the  top 
of  a  small,  bare  hill.  Cells  were  prepared  along  several 
galleries,  the  lowest  sixty  feet  from  the  surface.  The 
first  man  sent  to  the  prison  had  a  sweetheart  working  in 
a  neighboring  farmhouse,  and  on  the  eighteenth  night 
of  his  confinement  she  contrived  to  draw  him  up  through 
one  of  the  shafts  in  a  bucket  that  had  been  used  for 
hoisting  ore.  After  that  the  prison  remained  empty 
for  about  two  months. 

Probably  the  number  of  inmates  never  much  exceeded 
thirty.  Handcuffs  and  fetters  were  used  freely,  and 
gratings  were  put  over  the  unguarded  air  shafts,  but 
this  did  not  entirely  prevent  escapes.  Once  practi- 
cally all  the  prisoners  got  away  after  overpowering  the 
guards.  The  walled-in  buildings  at  the  entrance,  the 
gloomy  underground  cells,  and  everything  about  the 
place  were  repellant,  and  it  is  no  wonder  that  the  pris- 
oners used  all  their  ingenuity  to  get  away.  One  pris- 
oner was  a  negro  murderer  who  for  twenty  years  was 
kept  chained  to  the  rock  in  the  deepest  part  of  the 
mine.     He  slept  on  a  low  ledge  and  drank  from  a  little 


178  New   England 

pool  near  at  hand  into  which  some  water  trickled.  At 
last,  to  entertain  himself,  he  slipped  his  shackles  up 
over  his  knees.  There  they  fitted  so  tightly  as  to  cause 
an  irritation  that  resulted  in  blood  poisoning,  and  his 
legs  had  to  be  cut  off.  He  was  then  given  his  freedom 
and  lived  for  years  afterward. 

Some  of  the  prisoners  worked  in  a  prison  shop  mak- 
ing shoes,  and  others  tramped  the  revolving  stairway 
of  a  treadmill  that  furnished  power  to  grind  grain. 
One  prisoner,  who  had  earned  fifty  dollars  working 
overtime  shoemaking,  bribed  a  keeper  with  half  the 
money  to  help  him  to  escape.  That  was  in  1827, 
and  only  a  single  night  remained  before  the  prison 
was  to  be  abandoned,  and  the  prisoners  removed 
to  Wether sfield.  Far  down  in  the  mine  was  a  well 
brimming  full  of  pure  cool  water,  twenty-six  feet 
deep.  Above  the  well  was  an  open  shaft  down  which 
the  bribed  keeper  let  a  rope  on  that  last  night.  The 
prisoner  gripped  it  and  was  drawn  up,  but  when  nearly 
to  the  surface  the  keeper  cut  the  rope,  and  the  prisoner 
plunged  down  into  the  well  and  was  drowned. 

Iron  of  exceptionally  fine  quality  was  early  dis- 
covered at  Salisbury  in  the  northwestern  part  of  the 
state.  The  deposits  were  abundant,  and  the  supply  of 
wood,  then  the  universal  fuel,  was  plentiful.  For  a  long 
time  the  making  of  nails  from  this  iron  was  the  prin- 
cipal home  industry  of  the  Connecticut  colonists. 
Much  of  the  iron  used  for  the  weapons  of  the  Revolu- 
tion came  from  there.     Cannon  were  made  from  it  for 


Industry   in   Connecticut 


179 


the  army  and  navy,  barrels  for  the  muskets,  and 
heavy  chains  to  bar  the  rivers. 

In  this  vicinity  is  Bear  Mountain,  the  highest  point 
in  Connecticut.  Its  summit  is  2355  feet  above  the  sea 
level. 

One  of  the  first  of  Connecticut's  inventors  to  win 
fame  was  David  Bushnell,  who  was  born  on  his  father's 
farm  in  the  little  coast  town  of  Westbrook.  He  pre- 
pared for  college  after  he  reached  manhood,  entered 
Yale  at  the  age  of  twenty-nine,  and  graduated  just  as 
the  Revolution  was  beginning.     Then  he  turned  his 


'^\f!>!>^fi 


Bear  Mountain,  the  highest  in  Connecticut 


attention  to  making  what  was  a  forerunner  of  the 
submarine.     He   called   it   the  American    Turtle.     It 


i8o  New   England 

was  seven  and  one  half  feet  long  and  nearly  as  wide, 
and  there  was  just  space  enough  inside  to  contain  one 
man.  The  man  propelled  it  by  working  paddles  with 
his  feet.  Under  the  keel  was  ballast  which  could  be- 
lowered  to  act  as  an  anchor.  A  compass  was  carried 
to  aid  in  steering,  and  a  barometer  to  determine  the 
depth  below  the  surface.  The  boat  could  be  made 
to  descend  by  admitting  water  through  a  valve,  and 
to  rise  by  expelling  the  water  with  a  pump.  The 
supply  of  air  was  sufficient  to  last  the  man  half  an 
hour.  There  were  windows  of  heavy  glass,  and  phos- 
phorus was  used  to  obtain  additional  light.  At  the 
stern,  above  the  rudder,  was  a  receptacle  which  con- 
tained one  hundred  and  fifty  pounds  of  powder.  This 
could  be  attached  to  the  bottom  of  a  ship,  and  a 
mechanism  inside  exploded  the  powder  after  a  certain 
interval. 

The  inventor  thought  the  entire  British  navy  on 
our  coasts  could  be  blown  out  of  the  water.  The 
first  trial  of  the  turtle  was  made  in  New  York  harbor. 
A  sergeant  set  forth  in  it  and  got  under  the  British 
man-of-war.  Eagle,  but  did  not  succeed  in  attaching 
the  magazine  to  the  bottom.  He  had  started  to  re- 
turn when  he  fancied  that  the  enemy  had  discovered 
him,  and  in  his  alarm  he  cast  off  the  magazine.  It 
was  timed  to  explode  in  an  hour,  which  it  did,  much 
to  the  consternation  of  the  British. 

Later  Bushnell  himself  tried  to  blow  up  a  man-of- 
war  anchored  off  New  Haven.     He  failed  to  do  so,  but 


Industry   in    Connecticut  i  8 1 

did  succeed  in  blowing  up  an  enemy  schooner  which 
lay  just  astern  of  the  larger  vessel,  and  three  men 
were  killed. 

Soon  after  the  Revolution  Eli  Terry  of  Windsor 
made  some  small-sized  wooden  clocks  to  hang  on  the 
wall,  and  presently  he  hired  two  men  to  help  in  their 
manufacture.  The  case,  the  dial,  and  various  other 
parts  were  of  wood,  and  some  of  the  work  was  done 
with  a  jack-knife.  There  was  often  difficulty  in  get- 
ting just  the  right  kind  of  wood,  and  when  it  was  ob- 
tained it  required  many  months'  seasoning  before  it 
could  be  used. 

Twice  a  year  Mr.  Terry  would  pack  up  some  of  the 
clocks  and  make  a  journey  to  peddle  them  at  twenty- 
five  dollars  each.  In  1807  he  and  some  associates 
bought  an  old  mill  at  Waterbury  to  get  the  aid  of 
machinery  in  the  clock-making.  A  few  years  later  an 
apprentice  introduced  a  circular  saw.  This  helped  re- 
duce the  cost  of  manufacture  and  the  price,  and  ped- 
dlers sold  the  clocks  in  all  parts  of  the  Union. 

The  clock  with  brass  works  was  invented  in  1837, 
and  machine-made  Connecticut  clocks  and  watches 
were  soon  being  exported.  Their  excellence  and 
cheapness  made  them  favorites  the  world  over. 

A  remarkable  variety  of  manufactured  articles  is 
produced  in  the  state,  but  brass  goods  constitute  fully 
one-fourth  of  the  whole  in  value,  and  Waterbury  is  the 
most  noted  centre  of  the  industry  in  America. 

When  a  machine  was  invented  for  making  pins  at 


82 


New   England 


one  operation  the  manufacture  was  established  at 
Derby,  Connecticut,  in  1835,  because  in  that  vicinity 
competent  mechanics  could  be  found  who  had  gained 
expertness  by  working  on  brass  clocks. 

Different  towns  and  cities  in  the  state  have  in  a 
number  of  instances  won  a  notable  reputation  for  a 
particular  product  in  which  they  excel.  Thompson- 
ville,  north  of  Hartford,  has  its  great  carpet  mills; 

D  anbury         is 
America's  lead- 
ing community 
for  the  manu- 
facture of  hats, 
and     the    pro- 
duction of  cot- 
ton thread  and 
sewing  silk  has 
made     Willi- 
mantic  famous. 
One  of  the  important  manufacturing  towns  is  Meri- 
den,    and    not    far   from    the    town    are  the  famous 
Hanging  Hills.     They  are  flat-topped,  but  rise  very 
abruptly  from  the  valley. 

Meriden's  manufacturing  enterprises  began  in  1791 
with  the  making  of  cut  nails.  A  few  years  after- 
ward pewter  buttons  and  dishes  were  manufactured. 
Later  still  the  making  of  silver-plated  ware  developed 
into  such  an  industry  that  Meriden  became  known  as 
^'The  Silver  City." 


Some  of  ihr  .Mtridiii  Haiiuin";  llil 


Brick-laden  schooners  on  Long  Island  Sound  near  Sloningion 

Along  the  Connecticut  Shore 

THE  place  in  Connecticut  that  has  the  most  inhabit- 
ants is  New  Haven.  It  is  sometimes  called  "The 
Elm  City,"  there  are  so  many  fine  trees  of  that  variety 
adorning  its  parks  and  streets.  The  first  settlers  were 
attracted  to  it  by  its  excellent  harbor.     They  came  in 

183 


1 84  New   England 

the  autumn  of  1637,  built  a  hut,  and  left  a  few  men  to 
try  the  winter  climate.  The  main  party  arrived  in 
the  spring,  and  their  minister  preached  his  first  sermon 
there  under  an  oak  tree  on  April  i8th. 

Two  distinguished  fugitives  found  refuge  in  New 
Haven  early  in  the  year  1661.  They  were  Generals 
Goffe  and  Whalley  who  had  been  members  of  the  court 
that  condemned  King  Charles  I  of  England  to  death. 
Now  Charles  II  had  come  to  the  throne,  and  a  price 
was  set  on  the  heads  of  these  two  "  regicides."  Officers 
were  sent  from  Boston  to  arrest  them,  but  found  their 
errand  blocked  at  New  Haven  by  the  most  exasperating 
obstacles.  Their  documents  were  read  aloud  in  public 
meetings  instead  of  being  treated  as  secret- service 
business,  and  when  the  Sabbath  came  the  minister 
regaled  them  with  a  sermon  from  the  text:  "Hide 
the  outcasts ;  bewray  not  him  that  wandereth ;  let 
my  outcasts  dwell  with  thee,  Moab  ;  be  thou  a  covert 
to  them  from  the  face  of  the  spoiler." 

Every  precaution  was  taken  to  conceal  the  regicides. 
They  moved  from  one  house  to  another,  they  hid 
under  a  bridge  over  which  the  searchers  passed,  they 
were  for  a  time  in  the  woods,  and  for  a  time  in  an  old 
mill.  Then  they  went  to  the  top  of  West  Rock,  a 
steep  crag  about  two  miles  from  the  town,  where  a 
cave  was  prepared  for  them  in  a  pile  of  rocks.  There 
they  continued  for  several  months.  After  that  they 
dwelt  in  Milford,  in  great  seclusion,  for  three  years. 
Finally,  news  of  their  being  in  that  place  got  to  the 


Along  the   Connecticut  Shore  185 

king's  officers,  and  Connecticut  seemed  no  longer  a  safe 
retreat.  So  they  went  away,  travelling  only  by  night, 
to  the  frontier  village  of  Hadley,  in  Massachusetts. 

New  Haven  is  the  home  of  Yale  University,  one  of 
the  oldest,  largest,  and  best-known  of  American  edu- 
cational institutions.  The  need  of  a  college  was  felt 
in  Connecticut  almost  from  the  first,  but  it  was  gen- 
erally agreed  that  the  resources  of  the  whole  of  New 
England  were  barely  enough  to  support  Harvard.  At 
length,  however,  in  1700,  ten  ministers  met  at  Bran- 


New  Haven  Green 


ford  and  each  laid  on  a  table  a  contribution  of  books, 
saying,  "I  give  these  books  for  the  founding  of  a  col- 
lege in  this  colony."  The  whole  number  was  about 
forty  volumes. 


1 86  New  England 

The  next  year  the  General  Court  voted  the  college 
a  small  grant  of  money,  and  Saybrook  was  chosen  as 
the  place  where  it  was  to  be  established.  But  because 
its  first  rector  was  the  minister  at  Killingworth  the 
library  and  students  were  housed  there.  The  com- 
mencements, however,  took  place  at  Saybrook.  The 
college  had  just  one  student  for  the  first  six  months, 
and  the  total  number  of  graduates  in  fifteen  years  was 
only  fifty-five.  For  instruction  the  early  pupils  were 
largely  dependent  on  the  ten  ministers  who  were 
trustees. 

After  a  while  the  rector  died,  and  the  library  and 
some  of  the  students  were  transferred  to  Saybrook. 
Other  students  went  to  Milford  where  the  new  rector 
lived.  Finally,  in  1716,  the  trustees  voted  to  remove 
the  college  to  New  Haven.  Meanwhile  good  friends 
in  England  had  been  contributing  books  and  money 
to  help  it  along.  One  of  these  benefactors  was  Elihu 
Yale,  who  was  born  at  New  Haven  in  1648,  but  who, 
when  ten  years  old,  had  been  taken  to  England  by  his 
father,  and  had  never  returned.  He  became  a  wealthy 
merchant,  and  for  a  time  was  a  government  official 
in  India.  His  gifts  in  money  to  the  college  amounted 
to  £400,  and  the  trustees  gave  the  college  his  name. 

The  locating  of  the  college  in  New  Haven  was  the 
cause  of  much  dissatisfaction,  for  several  other  towns 
thought  they  had  a  better  claim  to  it.  A  portion  of 
the  students  seceded,  and  for  two  years  were  taught 
at  Wethersfield.     Saybrook  protested  against  the  re- 


Along  the   Connecticut  Shore  187 

moval  of  the  library.  In  the  night,  the  wagons  on 
which  the  books  had  been  loaded  ready  to  start  in  the 
morning  were  broken,  and  the  horses  that  were  to  draw 
them  were  turned  loose,  and  bridges  on  the  New 
Haven  turnpike  were  cut  away.  When  the  library 
at  last  reached  its  destination,  many  of  the  books  were 
missing. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  of  the  colonial  members 
of  the  faculty  was  Rev.  Naphtali  Daggett,  who  for  a 
quarter  of  a  century  was  the  college  preacher.  On 
Monday,  July  5,  1779,  the  townspeople  had  begun  to 
celebrate  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  when  they 
were  thrown  into  consternation  by  the  news  that  a 
fleet  of  forty-eight  vessels  had  dropped  anchor  at  West 
Haven,  and  that  three  thousand  men  were  marching 
against  the  town. 

Hasty  levies  made  ready  to  oppose  the  enemy,  and 
the  college  preacher  joined  them.  His  comrades  no 
sooner  came  within  range  of  the  British  bullets  than 
they  took  to  their  heels,  but  he  stood  his  ground, 
and,  though  wounded,  loaded  and  fired  until  a  de- 
tachment charged  and  captured  him.  The  officer  in 
command  inquired,  not  very  gently,  "  What  are 
you  doing  here,  you  old  fool,  firing  on  his  Majesty's 
troops?" 

"Exercising  the  rights  of  war,"  he  replied  grimly. 

Here  is  what  happened  to  him  afterward  in  his  own 
words  :  *'  'Midst  a  thousand  insults,  my  infernal  driver 
hastened  me  along  farther  than  my  strength  would  ad- 


i88 


New   England 


mit  in  the  extreme  heat  of  the  day,  weakened  as  I  was 
by  the  loss  of  hlood,  which  could  not  be  less  than  a 


'-#4- 


,.im 


ifjj  Kalkhuj/  Co.,  .V.  y. 

A  few  of  the  three  hundred  and  sixty-five  Thimble  Islands, 
between  New  Haven  and  Guilford 

quart.  When  I  failed  in  some  degree  through  faint- 
ness  he  would  strike  me  on  the  back  with  a  heavy  walk- 
ing-staff, and  kick  me  behind  with  his  foot.  At  length, 
I  arrived  at  the  Green  in  New  Haven  and  obtained 
leave  of  an  officer  to  be  carried  into  the  Widow  Ly- 
man's and  laid  on  a  bed,  where  I  lay  the  rest  of  the 
day  and  the  succeeding  night  in  such  acute  pain  as 
I  never  felt  before." 

The  to\vn  was  given  up  to  plunder,  but  the  British 
retired  after  being  in  it  only  overnight. 

At  the  outbreak  of  the  Revolution  Benedict  Arnold 
was  a  New  Haven  druggist  and  bookseller  with  a  shop 


Along  the   Connecticut  Shore  189 

near  the  Green.  When  news  of  the  Battle  of  Lexing- 
ton came  he  mustered  a  little  company  of  patriots  and 
led  the  way  to  the  powder  house  where  he  demanded 
and  received  the  keys. 

The  nineteenth  of  May,  1780,  was  the  famous  "Dark 
Day."  The  Connecticut  Legislature  was  in  session  in 
the  old  State  House  on  the  Green  when  the  sudden 
darkness  fell.  Many  believed  the  Judgment  Day  had 
arrived.  In  the  midst  of  the  excitement  a  motion  was 
made  to  adjourn.  Then  Colonel  Davenport  rose,  and 
said:  "I  am  against  an  adjournment.  If  this  is  not 
the  Day  of  Judgment  there  is  no  cause  for  adjourn- 
ment. If  it  is,  I  choose  to  be  found  doing  my  duty,  I 
wish,  therefore,  that  candles  may  be  brought,  and  we 
proceed  to  business." 

The  darkness  began  in  the  middle  of  the  morning 
and  continued  the  rest  of  the  day.  Persons  were  un- 
able to  read  common  print  or  to  tell  the  time  of  day  by 
their  clocks  and  watches.  The  birds  sang  their  even- 
ing songs  and  became  silent,  and  the  fowls  retired  to 
roost.  Clouds  covered  the  sky,  and  a  southwest  wind 
blew.  The  air  had  a  brassy  hue,  and  it  is  probable 
that  the  darkness  was  caused  by  the  smoke  of  a  forest 
fire. 

In  colonial  days  a  good  deal  of  New  Haven's  energy 
was  directed  to  the  export  of  meat  and  lumber  to  the 
West  Indies,  but  in  more  recent  times  manufacturing 
has  been  its  leading  interest.  The  New  York  and 
New  Haven  Railroad  has  its  main  offices  and  con- 


190  New   England 

struction  and  repair  shops  in  the  city,  and  gives  support 
to  a  tenth  of  the  people. 

One  of  the  greatest  of  New  Haven's  contributions 
to  industry  was  the  inventor,  Charles  Goodyear,  who 
was  born  there  in  1800.  His  father  was  a  hardware 
merchant,  and  when  he  was  old  enough  he  engaged  in 
the  same  business.  But  he  failed,  and  his  health  broke 
down,  and  often  afterward  he  was  imprisoned  for  debt. 
He  spent  ten  years  experimenting  with  rubber  to  make 
it  available  for  waterproof  shoes,  clothing,  and  other 
articles.  People  thought  he  was  crazy.  A  stranger 
who  was  inquiring  what  he  looked  like  received  this 
reply.  "If  you  see  a  man  who  wears  a  rubber  coat, 
cap,  vest,  and  shoes,  and  has  a  rubber  purse  without  a 
cent  in  it,  that  is  Charles  Goodyear." 

He  even  pawned  his  children's  school-books  to  get 
money  to  buy  rubber  for  his  experiments.  At  last, 
when  he  one  day  had  a  mixture  of  sulphur  and  rubber 
on  the  kitchen  stove,  he  chanced  to  subject  it  to  just 
the  right  intensity  of  heat,  and  achieved  success. 
After  he  had  patiently  perfected  his  discovery  and 
adapted  it  to  different  uses,  sixty  patents  were  re- 
quired to  secure  his  inventions.  However,  because  of 
fraud  and  mistakes  and  lawsuits,  he  gathered  little 
from  his  years  of  toil  and  ]:)rivation  except  the  honors 
awarded  to  his  skill  and  perseverance.  He  gave  to 
the  world  a  staple  now  apphed  to  hundreds  of  uses, 
and  employing  many  thousands  of  workmen  in  its 
manufacture. 


Along  the   Connecticut  Shore  191 


A  harbor  view  of  Bridgeport 

Another  great  industrial  city  on  the  Connecticut 
coast  is  Bridgeport.  Here  are  made  such  articles 
as  pianos,  sewing  machines,  toys,  ammunition, 
cutlery,   and    typewriters. 

This  was  the  home  of 
P.  T.  Barnum,  whose 
"  Greatest  Show  on 
Earth"  had  a  world-wide 
fame.  The  successor  to 
his  circus  still  has  its  win- 
ter quarters  in  the  city. 
"General  Tom  Thumb," 
one  of  the  notable  attrac- 
tions   of    the    "Greatest 

cu^,,,  "       ,„„^       u 4-      "Tom  Thumb"  and  his  wife, 

b»now,        was      born      at       ,  .        .v         / 

who    were     noteworthy     at- 

Bridgeportmi838.    When     tractions  in  P.  T.  Barnum's 
first  exhibited  he  was  less     ''Greatest   Show  on   Earth." 


192  New  England 

than  two  feet  high  and  weighed  sixteen  pounds.  Later 
he  increased  somewhat  in  height  and  grew  stout. 

Benjamin  Frankhn  often  used  to  pass  over  the  old 
post  road  along  the  coast  between  Philadelphia  and 
Boston.  Once  he  stopped  for  the  night  at  a  tavern 
near  Saybrook.  The  weather  was  frosty,  and  when 
he  went  in  he  found  all  the  space  before  the  blazing 
fire  occupied  by  a  group  of  village  politicians  swapping 
news.  Thereupon  he  ordered  the  landlord  to  give 
his  horse  a  peck  of  oysters  in  the  shell.  The  entire 
company  of  villagers  went  out  to  see  the  miracle  of  a 
horse  devouring  oysters.  When  the  landlord  returned 
with  the  announcement  that  the  horse  refused  to  eat 
the  oysters,  Franklin  was  found  comfortably  seated  in 
the  warmest  corner  quite  willing  to  make  a  meal  of  the 
oysters  himself. 

A  stream  which  was  the  original  west  boundary  of 
New  London  was  the  scene  of  a  very  odd  incident 
toward  the  end  of  winter  in  1646.  A  young  Saybrook 
couple  wished  to  be  married,  and  as  the  magistrate  in 
their  own  place  was  away  they  sent  word  to  Governor 
John  Winthrop  at  New  London  that  they  would  ride 
thither  to  have  him  perform  the  ceremony.  He  con- 
cluded to  ride  to  meet  them.  Both  he  and  the  wedding 
party  got  as  far  as  the  boundary  stream,  and  found  it 
in  flood  and  the  ice  broken  up.  They  could  not  cross, 
but  the  marriage  took  place  just  the  same.  The  gov- 
ernor on  his  side  of  the  stream  pronounced  them  man 
and  wife,  and  they  on  the  other  side  promised  to  love, 


Along   the   Connecticut   Shore  193 

honor,  and  obey.     Since  then  the  stream  has  been  called 
''  Bride  Brook." 

Winthrop  had  a  gristmill  in  a  rocky  glen  near  New 
London,  and  on  that  spot  a  gristmill  still  stands  with 
a  great  waterwheel  on  the  outside  of  the  building.  It 
is  one  of  the  most  interesting  colonial  relics  in  New 


The  old  grist  mill  at  New  London 

England.     This  mill  was  erected  in  1 71 2,  and  even  now 
it  continues  to  grind  as  of  old. 

New  London  had  a  thriving  West  India  trade  dur- 
ing the  half  century  that  preceded  the  Revolution. 
Its  cargoes  for  export  mostly  came  from  the  region 
north  and  west,  and  this  same  region  absorbed  the 
larger  portion  of  the  imports.  Some  of  the  heavy 
wagons  that  transported  the  goods  to  and  from  the 


194  New  England 

town  were  drawn  by  oxen,  and  others  by  horses.  Four 
animals  were  hitched  to  each  wagon.  It  was  nothing 
uncommon  for  a  hundred  of  these  big  creaking  vehicles 
to  arrive  from  widely  scattered  points  and  pass  in  pro- 
cession down  the  town  streets,  raising  suffocating  clouds 
of  dust.  The  teamsters  were  muscular,  red-shirted 
fellows,  each  armed  with  a  long  whip,  which  he  would 
now  and  then  flourish  in  a  way  to  make  it  snap  with  a 
report  like  a  pistol. 

The  wagons  brought  wheat  and  peas  in  bags,  corn  in 
barrels,  casks  of  hams,  pork,  and  beef,  savory  cheeses, 
pots  of  butter,  and  piles  of  staves  and  hoops  for  making 
barrels.  After  the  loads  had  been  delivered  at  the 
docks  the  drivers  would  assemble  at  a  near-by  tavern. 
There  they  would  indulge  in  merry  carousals,  and  in 
the  evening  would  perhaps  parade  the  streets  in  noisy 
bands  to  the  great  dismay  of  the  order-loving  citizens. 
The  next  morning  they  would  load  their  wagons 
with  sugar,  molasses,  and  other  goods,  and  drive  off 
homeward. 

The  place  fared  badly  in  the  Revolution.  Not  only 
did  commerce  come  to  a  standstill,  but  in  Sep- 
tember, 187 1,  Benedict  Arnold,  whose  birthplace  was 
only  fourteen  miles  distant  at  Norwich,  arrived  with  a 
British  fleet,  and  burned  the  town's  dweUings,  ware- 
houses, and  shipping. 

The  town  was  rebuilt,  but  the  old  sea  traffic  failed 
to  revive.  Brown  sea-moss  gathered  on  the  unused 
wharves,  great  ships  lay  idly  at  their  moorings  until 


Along  the   Connecticut  Shore  195 

they  fell  to  pieces  with  age  and  neglect,  and  the  only 
occupants  of  the  waterside  warehouses  were  rats  and 
cockroaches. 

Then  came  a  period  when  the  town  engaged  in  the 
whaling  industry,  and  New  London  vessels  voyaged  to 
the  remotest  seas.  Keen  eyes  were  ever  on  the  watch 
for  returning  whaleships,  and  if  one  arrived  which 
was  long  overdue,  or  had  been  reported  lost,  the  church 
bells  were  rung.  When  she  reached  the  wharf  a  crowd, 
mostly  of  women  and  children,  were  there  to  greet  her. 

Along  the  entire  Connecticut  coast  many  people  are 
engaged  in  the  planting  of  oyster  beds,  and  dredging 
for  oysters.  The  sheltered  waters  of  Long  Island 
Sound  favor  the  growth  of  oysters,  and  nearly  all  the 
bottom  on  the  Connecticut  side  is  privately  owned, 
and  devoted  to  oyster  culture. 

When  oysters  are  young  they  are  quite  active  and 
swim  about  freely  in  the  water.  Presently,  however, 
they  go  to  the  bottom,  attach  themselves  to  rocks  or 
other  hard  objects  and  grow  shells.  Therefore,  it  has 
come  to  De  the  practice  to  scatter  mother  oysters  over 
selected  portions  of  the  salt  water  shallows,  and  at  the 
spawning  season  to  spread  the  same  ground  with  boat 
loads  of  old  oyster  shells  to  which  the  young  oysters 
may  fasten.  For  the  rest  of  their  Hves  they  remain  in 
the  same  position,  unless  accident  or  the  rake  of  an 
oysterman  dislodges  them.  The  methods  adopted 
have  resulted  in  the  growth  of  great  numbers  of  oysters 
where  formerly  there  were  few. 


Putnam's  Wolf  Dt-n 


Connecticut   Places  and   Famous   People 

THERE  arc  several  queer  irregularities  in  the  Con- 
necticut boundary  line.  The  line  was  fixed  by 
commissioners,  of  whose  work  at  a  certain  stage  the 
famous  lawyer,  Rufus  Choate,  said  :    "They  might  as 

well  have  decided  tlial  the  line  between  the  states  was 

196 


Connecticut   Places  and   People         1 97 

bounded  on  the  north  by  a  bramble  bush,  on  the  south 
by  a  bluejay,  on  the  west  by  a  hive  of  bees  in  swarming 
time,  and  on  the  east  by  five  hundred  foxes  with  fire- 
brands tied  to  their  tails." 

The  eastern  line,  which  follows  the  crooked  course  of 
a  small  river  for  a  few  miles  back  from  the  coast,  was 
the  result  of  long  wrangling  which  almost  led  to  the 
use  of  force.  Various  shifts  were  made  in  the  northern 
line,  and  even  now  it  has  a  curious  jog  due  to  careless  sur- 


The  Lake  of  the  'I'hree  Stales,  where  the  boundary  hnes  of 

Connecticut,  Massachusetts,  and  New  York   meet.     Each 

of  the  distant  mountains  is  in  a  different  state 


veying.     The  irregularities  of  the  western  line  are  more 
or  less  the  result  of  chance  and  primitive  conditions. 


198 


New  England 


Hartford  is  the  capital  of  the  state.  It  is  a  great 
trading  and  business  centre  which  owes  much  of  its 
growth  to  its  position  at  the  head  of  navigation  of  the 
Connecticut.  There  are  extensive  manufacturing  plants 
in  the  city,  and  it  is  the  home  of  many  great  insurance 
companies.     Among  its  important  manufactures    are 

pistols,  rifles,  and  ma- 
chine guns,  rubber 
goods,  electrical  sup- 
plies, bicycles,  and 
automobiles. 

The  city  is  noted  for 
its  many  parks,  fine 
trees,  and  handsome 
residences.  A  visitor 
is  apt  to  declare  that 
it  is  the  second  most 
beautiful  place  in  the 
United  States,  the  visi- 
tor's home  place,  of 
course,  ranking  first. 
Formerly  New  Haven 
and  Hartford  were  both  capitals  of  the  state,  and  the 
meetings  of  the  legislature  were  held  in  each  in  alter- 
nate years,  but  Hartford  has  been  the  sole  capital  since 

1873- 

One  of  the  most  famous  episodes  in  its  history  was 

the  attempt  in  1687  of  the  British  colonial  governor, 

Andros,    to    seize    Connecticut's    charter,  which    his 


A  clock  lower  in  a  Hartford  park 


Connecticut  Places  and   People         199 


They   had   been 


government  had  concluded  was  too  liberal.  He  came 
to  Hartford  accompanied  by  sixty  soldiers  to  enforce 
his  demand  for  the  charter.  The  colonial  assembly 
met  him  in  the  meeting-house  and  its  members  ex- 
plained at  great  length  how  dear  the  charter  was  to 
them,  and  how  reluctant  they  were  to  give  it  up.  Eve- 
ning came  and  candles  were  lighted.  The  case  had  be- 
come desperate  for  the  colonists, 
compelled  to  bring  in 
the  charter,  and  there 
it  lay  on  the  table 
before  the  eyes  of 
Andros.  Suddenly 

the  lights  were  blown 
out,  and  Captain 
Wadsworth  of  Hart- 
ford slipped  out  of  the 
meeting-house  with 
the  charter  and  hid  it 
in  a  big  hollow  oak 
tree  near  by.     When 

the  candles  were  relighted  the  assembly  was  no  longer 
able  to  comply  with  Andros's  demand. 

Two  years  later  a  new  king  came  on  to  the  British 
throne,  and  Connecticut  resumed  its  government 
under  the  old  charter.  This  charter  still  exists  and 
is  one  of  the  chief  historical  treasures  of  the  state. 
The  oak  tree  sur\'ived  until  1856,  when  its  \'enerable 
trunk  was  prostrated  in  an  August  gale.     It  measured 


The  Charter  Oak,  in  which  Captain 
Wadsworth  hid  the  colonial  charter 


200 


New   Enp-land 


twenty-one  feet  in  circumference  at  a  height  of  seven 
feet  from  the  gound. 

The  first  American  woolen  mill  was  started  in  Hart- 
ford in  1788,  and  some  of  the  cloth  woven  in  this  mill 

was  made  into 
a  suit  which 
George  Wash- 
ington wore 
when  he  was 
inaugurated 
President  at 
New  York  the 
next  year. 

New  Eng- 
land is  famous 
for  its  woolen 
L,'oods,  but  only 
a  small  num- 
ber of  sheep 
are  now  kept 
in  its  pastures. 
Most  of  the 
wool  comes 
from  Ohio  and 
states  farther 
west,  and  from  Australia.  \A^en  it  has  been  washed 
and  freed  from  such  things  as  burs  and  sticks,  it  is  un- 
tangled and  combed  out  straight.  Afterward  it  is 
twisted  into  yarn.     The  yarn  is  woven  into  cloth  for 


Connecticut's  State  House 


Connecticut   Places  and   People         201 

men's  suits  and  ovxTCoats,  and  is  used  for  blankets, 
stockings,  carpets,  and  many  other  articles.  Nearly  all 
of  our  garments  are  made  of  either  wool  or  cotton, 
or  the  two  mixed. 

Hartford  is  indebted  for  one  of  its  most  important 
industries  to  the  inventor,  Samuel  Colt,  who  was  born 
in  that  city  in  1814.  At  the  age  of  sixteen  he  ran 
away  to  sea  and  voyaged  to  India.  On  this  voyage  he 
made  a  wooden  model  of  what  won  world-wide  fame 
later  as  "Colt's  Revolver."  A  company  which  started 
its  manufacture  failed,  and  not  until  a  demand  was 
created  by  the  Mexican  War  did  the  present  great 
firearms  company  begin  its  successful  career. 

Mark  Twain,  one  of  the  world's  greatest  humorists, 
wrote  most  of  his  famous  books  in  Hartford.  The 
city  was  his  home  for  nearly  all  his  life  after  1871. 

Noah  Webster  of  dictionary  fame  was  born  at  West 
Hartford  in  1758.  For  the  first  fifteen  years  of  his  life 
he  lived  at  home,  attended  the  village  school,  and 
did  the  usual  work  which  falls  to  the  lot  of  a  farmer's 
son.  After  that  he  fitted  himself  for  college  and  went 
to  Yale,  where  he  graduated  in  1778.  His  father  then 
gave  him  an  eight-dollar  Continental  bill,  worth  at 
the  time  about  half  its  face  value  in  specie,  and  told 
him  he  must  henceforth  rely  on  his  own  exertions.  So 
he  resorted  to  school  teaching,  at  first  in  Hartford, 
and  later  in  other  places. 

About  this  time  he  compiled  his  famous  blue-covered 
spelling-book,  the  most  widely  used  school-book  ever 


202 


New   England 


published.  Its  sales  for  a  considerable  period  were 
over  a  million  copies  a  year,  and  during  the  twenty 
years  that  Webster  was  engaged  in  preparing  his 
dictionary  the  profits  from  that  one  little  school-book 
furnished  the  entire  support  of  his  family,  though  his 
copyright  receipts  were  less  than  one  cent  a  book. 

^        In  1798  Webster  became  a 

resident  of  New  Haven  and 
there  began  w^ork  on  his  dic- 
tionary. He  died  in  that 
city  at  the  age  of  eighty-five, 
while  busy  on  a  second  re- 
vision. 

That  greatest  of  colonial 
theologians,  Jonathan  Ed- 
wards, was  born  at  South 
Windsor  in  1703.  His  father 
was  pastor  of  the  church 
there  for  sixty-three  years 
and  served  nowhere  else. 
Jonathan  was  one  of  eleven  children.  He  was  the 
only  boy.  The  girls  all  grew  to  a  height  of  six  feet, 
and  their  father  used  to  speak  of  them  jocularly  as 
his  sixty  feet  of  daughters.  Jonathan  studied  Latin  at 
eight  years  of  age,  and  at  thirteen  entered  Yale,  where 
he  graduated  four  years  later  with  the  highest  honors. 
When  he  was  nineteen  he  began  to  preach. 

Litchfield  was  the  home  of  another  famous  minis- 
terial family.     Lyman  Beecher,  one  of  the  foremost 


Noah  Webster,  whose  dic- 
tionary    is     famous     the 
world  over 


Connecticut  Places  and   People  203 


American  preachers  of  his  time,  was  pastor  there  for 
sixteen  years  beginning  with  18 10.  He  had  thirteen 
children,  seven  of  whom  were  sons,  and  these  sons  all 
became  preachers.  The  most  famous  of  the  seven, 
Henry  Ward  Beecher,  was  born  at  Litchfield.  As  a 
boy  he  had  little  aptitude  for  study  and  wanted  to  go 
to  sea.  Instead,  he  continued  his  education  and 
graduated  at  Amherst  College. 
He  won  no  laurels  in  the  routine 
college  lessons,  but  displayed 
marked  ability  in  writing  and 
debating.  For  most  of  his  life 
he  was  pastor  of  Plymouth 
Church  in  Brooklyn,  where  his 
congregation  was  one  of  the 
largest  in  the  United  States. 

His  sister,  Harriet  Beecher 
Stowe,  the  novelist,  was  also 
born  at  Litchfield.  She  for  a 
time  taught  school  in  Hartford, 
and  in  1864  became  a  permanent 
resident  of  that  city. 

An  entertaining  incident  in  Litchfield's  histor}^  oc- 
curred on  a  pleasant  September  morning  in  1780  when 
General  Washington  passed  through  the  place.  One 
of  the  local  residents  was  Appleton  Kilbourne,  a 
methodical  farmer,  who  probably  never  went  ten  miles 
from  home  in  his  life.  On  the  morning  mentioned  he 
mounted  Dobbin  and  started  for  the  mill  with  a  couple 


Harriet  Beecher  Stowe, 

the  author  of  "Uncle 

Tom's  Cabin" 


204  New  England 

of  bags  of  grain.  He  was  passing  a  tavern  at  a  corner 
when  a  friend  called  out,  "Hi,  Uncle  App,  you're  a 
little  too  late!" 

"Too  late  for  what?"  Uncle  App  asked. 

"Why,  General  Washington  and  his  escort  have 
just  left  here,"  was  the  reply.  "Look  to  the  west- 
ward —  there  they  go." 

Uncle  App  at  once  urged  Dobbin  in  that  direction 
at  full  speed,  the  bags  flopping  with  every  bound 
of  the  horse,  and  the  rider's  coattails  streaming 
out  behind.  He  passed  the  military  procession, 
then  suddenly  wheeled  his  horse,  and  confronted  the 
chieftain. 

"Are  you  General  Washington ? "    he  inquired. 

"I  am,  sir,"  Washington  replied. 

"God  Almighty  bless  you!"  Uncle  App  exclaimed 
waving  his  hat  in  the  air.  Then  he  quietly  pursued 
his  way  to  the  mill. 

One  of  Connecticut's  heroes  of  the  Revolution  was 
"  Old  Put,"  as  General  Israel  Putman  was  affectionately 
called.  He  came  as  a  young  man,  shortly  after  his 
marriage,  to  the  eastern  part  of  the  state  and  settled 
in  what  is  now  the  village  of  Brooklyn.  In  a  few  years 
he  had  a  comfortable  home  and  well-fenced  clearings. 
Many  sheep  were  kept  in  the  region,  and  these  suf- 
fered from  the  ravages  of  a  certain  she-wolf.  Her 
footprints  were  easily  recognized,  for  she  had  at  some 
time  been  caught  in  a  trap  and  escaped  by  leaving  the 
toes  of  one  foot  behind.     At  last  Putman  entered  into 


Connecticut   Places   and   People         205 


an  agreement  with  five  of  his  neighbors  to  watch  for 
and  follow  the  wolf  until  she  was  killed. 

They  began  the  pursuit  immediately  after  a  light 
fall  of  snow  at  the  opening  of  winter.  Over  the  hills 
through  forest  and  swamp  they  went  until  the  wolf 
entered  a  den 
in  the  rocks. 
Here  a  guard 
was  set,  and 
a  crowd  of 
men  and  boys 
assembled 
with  dogs  and 
guns,  straw 
and  sulphur. 
A  fire  was 
made  in  the 
mouth  of  the 
cave,  but  the  smoke  and  fumes  escaped  too  readily 
from  the  crevices  to  be  effective. 

The  hours  passed  until  nearh-  midnight,  and  then 
Putnam  announced  that  he  would  go  into  the  cave 
to  investigate.  After  fastening  a  rope  to  one  of  his 
legs  and  ordering  those  outside  to  pull  him  forth  when 
he  signalled  by  kicking  the  rope,  he  took  off  his  coat  and 
vest,  and,  armed  only  with  a  torch,  crawled  in  at  the 
opening.  He  had  advanced  about  twenty  feet  when 
he  saw  the  glaring  eyeballs  of  the  wolf  at  the  farther 
end  of  the  cavity,  scarcely  three  yards  distant.     A 


"Satan's  Kingdom,"  a  wild  section  in  the 
western  part  of  the  state 


2o6  New   England 

hearty  kick  at  the  rope  caused  his  friends  to  hastily 
pull  him  out,  much  to  the  detriment  of  his  clothes 
and  person.  But  he  at  once  called  for  his  gun,  and 
back  he  went.  As  soon  as  he  was  near  enough  to  see 
the  wolf  distinctly  he  took  aim  and  fired.  The  con- 
cussion and  the  smoke  almost  overpowered  him,  but 
the  crowd  outside  hauled  him  forth  into  the  open  air, 
where  he  quickly  revived.  Then  for  a  third  time  he 
entered  the  cave.     He  found  the  wolf  dead,  seized  her 

by  the  ears, 
kicked  the 
rope,  and  out 
he  was  dragged 
with  the  wolf 
in  his  wake. 

News  of  the 
Battle  of  Lex- 
ington reached 
Putnam  while 
he  was  ploughing  in  an  outlying  field,  two  miles 
from  the  village.  \Vlien  the  mounted  courier  came 
along  beating  a  drum  at  intervals  and  calling  out  the 
news  to  such  persons  as  he  saw.  Old  Put  unhitched 
his  oxen  from  the  plough,  and  bade  one  of  his 
boys,  who  was  with  him,  to  go  home  and  tell  Mrs. 
Putnam  that  he  had  gone  to  fight  the  British. 
Then  he  mounted  his  horse,  on  which  he  had  ridden 
to  the  field  that  morning,  and  dashed  away  toward 
Boston. 


General  Putnam's  plough 


Connecticut   Places  and   People         207 

He  was  noted  for  his  energy  and  courage.  The 
scene  of  one  of  his  most  daring  exploits  was  the  old 
town  of  Greenwich  in  the  extreme  southwestern 
corner  of  the  state.  A  peninsula  which  reaches  out 
on  the  west  side  of  Greenwich  harbor  was  used  as  a  pas- 
ture for  horses  in  the  early  days,  and  a  settlement  which 
grew  up  in  its  vicinity  was  called  Horseneck.  On  the 
summit  of  a  steep  hill  there,  a  little  church  was  built. 
Putnam  was  in  this  region  with  a  small  force  in  Feb- 
ruary 1779  when  a  British  foraying  party  of  over  two 
thousand  cavalry  and  foot  soldiers  was  discovered 
approaching. 

To  oppose  them  Putnam  had  only  one  hundred  and 
fifty  men  and  two  pieces  of  artillery.  He  stationed 
his  force  on  the  brow  of  the  steep  rocky  hill  near  the 
church,  and  when  the  enemy  drew  near  received  them 
with  several  well-directed  volleys.  They  prepared  to 
charge,  and  Putnam  ordered  his  men  to  retire.  He 
himself  lingered  until  the  British  cavalry  was  close  at 
hand.  The  road  down  the  hill  w^as  circuitous,  and 
time  was  precious.  A  path  furnished  a  short-cut. 
This  had  been  made  by  people  walking  to  the  church, 
and  they  had  placed  stones  somewhat  irregularly  in 
the  path  to  aid  them  in  climbing.  Down  this  steep 
path  Putnam  urged  his  horse,  greatly  to  the  amaze- 
ment of  the  British  cavalrymen,  not  one  of  whom 
dared  make  such  a  hazardous  descent.  They  dis- 
charged their  guns  at  him,  but  he  was  unharmed.  One 
bullet,  however,  passed  through  his  hat,  and  he  turned 


2o8  New   England 

and  shook  his  fist,  shouting,  "I'll  hang  ye  to  the  next 
tree  when  I  catch  ye!" 

Greenwich  is  no  longer  a  rustic  village,  but  a  place 
of  splendid  residences,  in  park-like  surroundings.  It 
claims  to  number  among  its  dwellers  at  least  seventy 
milhonnaires. 

A  Connecticut  hero  of  the  Revolution,  whose  fame  is 
no  less  permanent  than  that  of  Putnam,  is  Nathan 
Hale.  He  was  born  at  Coventry  in  1755.  Although 
a  delicate  child  he  grew  up  to  be  fond  of  outdoor 
life  and  became  a  strong,  athletic  lad.  While  at- 
tending Yale  College  he  broke  the  college  record  for 
jumping.  He  graduated  at  nineteen  and  began  teach- 
ing school.  When  the  Revolution  began  he  promptly 
joined  the  army  and  soon  attained  the  rank  of  captain. 

In  September,  1776,  Washington  needed  a  spy  who 
would  enter  the  British  lines  and  learn  all  he  could  and 
return  with  the  information.  Hale  volunteered  for  this 
duty,  and  crossed  from  South  Norwalk,  Connecticut, 
to  Long  Island  in  a  sloop,  and  made  his  way  to  New 
York,  which  the  British  then  held.  He  was  disguised 
as  a  schoolmaster,  and  wore  a  plain  brown  suit  and 
a  broad-brimmed  round  hat,  and  took  along  his  di- 
ploma. His  mission  was  entirely  successful  until  he 
had  returned  to  the  place  on  Long  Island  where  a 
boat  was  to  meet  him.  There,  at  the  last  moment,  he 
was  captured  and  the  records  of  what  he  had  learned  as 
a  spy  were  found  below  movable  cork  soles  in  his  shoes. 
Soon  afterward  he  was  taken  early  one  morning  to  an 


Connecticut   Places  and    People         209 


orchard  on  Manhattan  Island,  a  rope  was  adjusted 
around  his  neck,  and  the  officer  in  charge  said  to  him, 
"You  may  make  your  last  speech." 

With  a  clear  strong  voice,  Hale  responded,  "I  only 
regret  that  I  have  but  one  life  to  lose  for  my  country." 

One  of  the  villages 
not  far  east  from  the 
Connecticut  River 
in  its  lower  course 
is  Moodus,  a  place 
that  is  famous  for 
its  pecuHar  noises. 
Strange  subterra- 
nean sounds  have 
been  heard  in  the 
region  from  time 
immemorial.  The 
town's  first  minister, 
writing  in  1729,  says 
he  had  "  heard  the 
noises  coming  from 
the  north  like  slow 
thunder,  until  the 
sound  came  near, 
and  then  there 
seemed  to  be  a  breaking  Hke  the  noise  of  a  cannon  shot, 
which  shakes  the  houses  and  all  that  is  in  them." 

Perhaps  the  oddest  person  who  ever  dwelt  in  the 
state  was  "The  Old  Leather  Man."     He  was  born  in 


"The  01(1  Leather  Man,"  who  wore 
a  suit  that  was  all  made  of  leather 


2IO  New   England 

France,  and  as  a  boy  was  apprenticed  there  to  a  tanner. 
He  proved  so  capable  that  he  at  length  assumed  charge 
of  his  master's  business.  About  the  same  time  he  fell 
in  love  with  his  employer's  daughter,  but  her  parents 
opposed  the  match  and  he  came  to  America.  That 
was  in  i860,  when  he  was  about  twenty-five  years  old. 
He  avoided  people  and  became  a  solitary  rover.  His 
clothing  was  all  of  leather.  It  was  made  principally 
of  old  boot-legs,  closely  sewed  together  with  leather 
lacing.  His  shoes  had  wooden  soles  and  weighed  about 
ten  pounds.  He  had  shelters  or  caves  to  which  he 
resorted  at  various  places  among  the  rocks  on  the  lonely 
hills.  In  them  he  slept  on  a  bed  of  leaves  with  a  log 
for  a  pillow.  He  had  a  regular  route  between  the 
Connecticut  and  Hudson  rivers,  over  which  he 
went  about  once  every  three  months,  stopping  at 
each  shelter  several  days.  W^ien  the  local  people 
saw  his  fire  burning  at  night  on  the  hills  they 
would  remark,  "The  Old  Leather  Man  is  around 
again." 

The  rustling  of  his  leather  suit  was  likely  to  be  heard 
before  he  was  seen.  He  would  stop  at  houses'  where 
he  had  been  treated  kindly,  and  seat  himself  on  the 
doorstep,  never  uttering  a  word.  If  spoken  to  he  would 
look  up  and  smile.  When  food  was  given  to  him  he 
ate  what  he  wanted  and  put  the  rest  in  a  large  leather 
pouch  that  he  always  carried.  In  March,  1889,  he  was 
found  dead  in  one  of  his  shelters. 


A  gate  decorated  with  bones  from  the  jaw  of  a  whale 
The  Story  of  Block   Island 

BLOCK  Island  is  one  of  the  most  popular  of  the 
New  England  shore  resorts.  It  is  about  eight 
miles  long  and  three  wide,  and  is  twelve  miles  from 
the  Rhode  Island  mainland.  The  island  was  dis- 
covered in  the  year  1524  by  a  French  voyager,  who 


21  2 


New   England 


says,  ''It  was  well-peopled,  for  we  saw  fires  all  along 
the  coast." 

The  Indians  called  it  IManisses.  It  gets  its  present 
name  from  Adrian  Block,  a  Dutch  navigator,  who 
visited  it  in  1614. 

The  native  inhabitants  were  a  vigorous  race,  and 
they  engaged  in  perpetual  wars  with  other  tribes. 
One  moonlight  night  the  Mohegans  of  Montauk, 
Long  Island,  eighteen  miles  southerly,  came  in  a  fleet 
of  canoes  to  assail  them.  The  invaders  were  dis- 
covered approaching,  and  after  they  had  landed  and 


The  Mohegan  Bluffs,  on  the  summit  of  which  a  party  of 
besieged  Indians  perished 

marched  up  into  the  island  the  Manisseans  stole  their 
canoes.     Then  the  islanders  followed  the  Mohegans 


The  Story  of  Block   Island  213 

and  drove  them  to  the  lofty  bluffs  on  the  opposite 
shore.  The  fugitives  could  retreat  no  farther,  and 
there  on  the  heights  they  contrived  to  dig  a  trench,  in 
which  they  crouched  and  defended  themselves  with 
their  arrows.  They  had  no  shelter,  no  food,  no  water, 
their  besiegers  were  pitiless,  and  gradually  they  all 
pined  away  and  perished. 

Another  tragedy  of  the  island  occurred  in  the  sum- 
mer of  1636.  John  Oldham  of  Watertown,  Massa- 
chusetts, was  trading  with  a  crowd  of  Indians  two  miles 
off  shore  in  his  pinnace  when  they  suddenly  over- 
whelmed and  killed  him.  Two  boys  and  two  friendly 
Indians  who  were  with  him  were  made  prisoners. 
Afterward  they  and  a  part  of  the  vessel's  goods  were 
put  into  a  canoe,  and  some  of  their  captors  paddled 
away  with  them  toward  the  shore. 

About  this  time  an  English  vessel  somewhat  larger 
than  the  pinnace  arrived  in  the  vicinity,  and  its  com- 
mander. Captain  John  Gallop  of  Boston,  espied  the 
pinnace.  The  Indians  were  attempting  to  navigate 
it,  but  they  managed  so  unskillfuUy  that  Gallop's 
suspicions  were  aroused.  He  drew  nearer  and  knew 
it  was  John  Oldham's,  and  he  saw  that  the  deck  was 
full  of  Indians.     There  were  fourteen  of  them. 

Gallop  concluded  they  had  killed  Oldham,  and  he 
wished  to  attack  them,  but  he  had  to  be  cautious  about 
doing  so,  for  he  and  the  one  man  and  two  boys  with 
him  had  no  weapons  except  two  guns  and  two  pistols, 
and  only  duckshot  with  which  to  load  these  firearms. 


2  14  New  England 

However,  they  brought  their  vessel  up  near  the  pin- 
nace and  fired  among  the  Indians,  who  stood  ready 
for  combat  armed  with  guns,  pikes,  and  swords. 

That  caused  the  savages  to  take  refuge  under  the 
deck.  Then  Gallop,  after  drawing  off  a  little  way,  re- 
turned with  a  good  gale  and  rammed  the  pinnace. 
The  blow  almost  overset  her,  and  the  Indians  were  so 
frightened  that  six  of  them  leaped  into  the  sea  and 
were  drowned.  Again  the  English  drew  off.  Now 
they  fitted  their  anchor  on  the  front  of  their  vessel 
and  rammed  a  second  time.  The  anchor  stove  a  hole 
in  the  side  of  the  pinnace,  and  they  delivered  another 
^'olle^^ 

Four  more  of  the  Indians  leaped  to  their  death  in 
the  sea,  and  the  English  boarded  the  damaged  vessel. 
One  of  the  remaining  Indians  surrendered,  and  they 
bound  him  and  put  him  in  the  hold.  They  captured 
a  second  and  bound  him  also,  but  did  not  dare  confine 
him  with  the  first  lest  the  two  should  contrive  to 
release  each  other.  So  they  heaved  him  overboard. 
The  only  Indians  still  on  the  pinnace  besides  the 
prisoner  were  two,  armed  with  swords,  who  were  in 
a  little  room  below  deck.  Gallop  fastened  the  door, 
put  what  goods  the  Indians  had  not  carried  away  into 
his  vessel,  and  started  for  Boston  with  the  pinnace  in 
tow.  But  when  night  came  the  wind  rose,  and  he  was 
obliged  to  turn  the  pinnace  adrift,  and  it  was  blown 
to  the  mainland  shore. 

The  news  of  Mr.  Oldham's  death  roused  Boston  to 


The   Story   of  Block   Island  2 1  5 

prepare  an  avenging  expedition,  and,  toward  the  end 
of  September,  ninety  men  set  forth  for  Block  Island 
in  three  pinnaces.  On  the  day  that  they  arrived  at 
the  island  there  was  too  much  wind  and  too  heavy  a 
surf  for  them  to  approach  close  to  the  shore,  and  they 
had  to  wade  waist  deep  through  the  water.  The 
Indians  were  on  the  beach  to  oppose  them,  and  sent 
their  arrows  thick  about  the  English.  One  of  the 
soldiers  was  wounded  in  the  neck.  An  ofhcer,  wTiting 
of  his  experiences,  says:  "Myself  received  an  arrow 
through  my  *coat-sleeve.  A  second  struck  my  helmet 
on  the  forehead,  so  if  God  in  his  providence  had  not 
moved  the  heart  of  my  \vife  to  persuade  me  to  carry  it 
along  I  had  been  slain." 

As  soon  as  they  got  to  the  land  the  Indians  found 
that  the  white  men's  bullets  outreached  the  red  men's 
arrows.  So  the  savages  fled  to  the  swamps,  and  the 
English  scarcely  saw  them  again  in  the  two  days  that 
the  expedition  was  on  the  island.  The  invaders  dis- 
covered two  villages,  and  they  burned  the  wigwams, 
killed  some  Indian  dogs  that  were  prowling  around, 
and  cut  down  the  ripening  corn.  They  brought  away 
many  well-wrought  mats  and  several  handsome  bas- 
kets. Two  Narragansett  chiefs  later  helped  them  re- 
cover the  boys  who  had  been  on  Oldham's  vessel. 

A  few  English  families  settled  on  the  island  in  1662. 
There  were  then  four  hundred  Indian  inhabitants. 
They  recognized  the  pow^r  of  the  whites,  and  many 
of  them  became  slaves  in  the  settlers'  families.     Con- 


21 6  New   England 

siderable  anxiety  was  felt  at  times  lest  they  should 
revolt,  and  when  King  Philip's  War  was  being  fought 
every  Block  Island  Indian  was  disarmed  at  sundown. 
The  weapons  were  returned  to  their  owners  each  morn- 
ing. As  the  years  passed,  the  Indians  steadily  de- 
creased in  number  until,  at  the  end  of  two  centuries, 
there  was  only  a  single  survivor. 

The  first  settlers  found  the  island  well  wooded. 
Now  it  is  almost  bare  of  trees,  except  for  orchards  and 
planted  shade  trees.  Its  soil  is  naturally  full  of  small 
rounded  boulders  left  by  an  ancient  glacier,  but  these 
have  been  mostly  cleared  away  and  made  into  hun- 
dreds of  miles  of  stone- wall  fences. 

The  island  has  one  great  pond  and  ninety-nine  small 
ones,  but  springs  are  entirely  lacking,  and  the  largest 
stream  is  a  little  brook. 

When  the  whites  had  been  on  the  island  about 
seventy  years,  the  diminishing  supply  of  wood  for 
buildings,  fences,  and  fires  made  the  people  fear  they 
would  have  to  move  elsewhere.  Then  they  began  to 
burn  peat,  and  this  soon  became  almost  the  only 
fuel,  except  as  small  supplies  of  wood  were  obtained 
from  wrecks  or  brought  in  boats  from  the  mainland. 
Some  of  the  peat  beds  cover  several  acres. 

The  peat  was  called  "tug"  by  the  islanders.  This 
name  refers  to  the  hard  work  of  getting  it  from  the 
bogs,  where  it  exists  in  the  form  of  thick  black  mud. 
The  mud  was  shovelled  out  and  loaded  on  carts.  Then 
it  was  taken  to  smooth,  dry  ground  and  made  into 


The  Story  of  Block   Island  2 1  7 

balls  about  six  inches  in  diameter  with  the  bare  hands. 
The  balls  were  put  side  by  side  on  the  ground,  where 
they  flattened  out  a  good  deal  on  the  under  side.  After 
drying  for  two  or  three  weeks  they  were  stacked  up 
in  pyramids  to  dry  still  more,  and  finally  were  drawn 
in  carts  to  the  tug-house  in  the  home  yard. 

Stoves  and  coal  were  introduced  on  the  island  about 
1845.  B^t  thirty  years  later  the  poorer  famihes  were 
still  using  peat,  and  in  very  few  homes  had  it  been 
discarded  altogether.  Its  smoke  gave  forth  a  pungent 
odor  that  plainly  informed  the  passer-by  where  it  was 
being  burned. 

At  first  the  island  soil  was  fertile,  but  after  a  time 
it  became  exhausted,  and  the  farmers  began  to  resort 
to  the  shores  for  the  seaweed  that  was  left  there  by  the 
storms.  Men  and  boys,  armed  with  forks  and  rakes, 
would  often  be  at  the  task  before  a  storm  was  over, 
piling  up  the  stranded  seaweed  beyond  the  reach  of  the 
waves,  and  reaching  for  that  in  the  water  lest  the  re- 
ceding tide  or  a  change  of  wind  should  bear  it  away. 
Some  of  the  seaweed  was  spread  over  the  fields  and 
ploughed  under,  and  some  was  put  into  the  ground  with 
the  seed. 

The  island  people  never  wholly  depended  on  their 
farms  for  a  livelihood,  but  spent  much  time  fishing. 
Even  the  cold  stormy  winter  did  not  entirely  prevent 
the  fishermen  from  venturing  forth. 

Not  until  almost  two  hundred  years  after  the  arrival 
of  the  first  settlers  did  the  people  go  to  any  trouble  or 


2l8 


New   England 


expense  in  improving  the  roads.  Lanes  here  and  there, 
and  cart  tracks  across  the  meadows  and  pastures, 
answered  every  purpose.  The  lanes  were  so  narrow 
in  places  that  teams  could  not  pass  each  other.  Some 
of  the  rustic  highways  went  over  hills  as  steep  as  house 
roofs,  descended  into  hollows  of  mud  and  water,  and 
the  wheels  were  almost  constantly  jolting  over  boulders. 
There  were  gates  to  open  and  bars  to  take  down,  but 
what  did  it  matter?     No  one  was  in  a  hurry. 


Fishing  boats  in  the  old  harl)or 


Fine  horses  and  good  saddles  for  both  sexes  were 
owned,  and  when  there  was  to  be  a  social  gathering  of 
young  people  parties  would  go  galloping  around  the 


The   Story  of  Block   Island  219 

hills  and  through  the  ravines,  jumping  fences  and 
leaping  ditches,  with  laughing  and  shouting,  until  at 
last  they  alighted  at  some  house  agreed  on.  There  a 
feast  awaited  them,  and  a  fiddler  who  helped  to  make 
the  evening  a  merry  one. 

A  curious  tradition  of  the  island  is  that  of  the  "  Danc- 
ing Mortar."  This  mortar  was  a  section  of  a  lig- 
num-vitae  tree  fourteen  inches  long  and  ten  in  di- 
ameter, and  hollowed  out  at  one  end  to  contain  about 
four  quarts.  In  such  mortars  the  early  settlers  put 
corn,  a  handful  at  a  time,  and  pounded  it  into  meal 
with  a  stone  pestle.  The  wood  was  so  hard  and 
crossgrained  as  to  stand  almost  any  amount  of  pound- 
ing without  being  split  or  worn.  Simon  Ray  owned 
the  Dancing  Mortar.  After  he  and  his  family  died 
their  house  was  occupied  by  people  of  another  name, 
and  then  for  a  considerable  period  it  was  said  to  be 
haunted.  That  was  when  the  mortar  won  its  name 
by  dancing  around  the  room  it  was  in  without  any  one's 
touching  it,  and  performing  all  sorts  of  strange  antics. 
It  would  throw  itself  on  its  side  and  roll  to  and  fro, 
then  right  itself,  and  hop  up  from  the  floor  several  times 
in  succession.     At  least,  that  is  the  way  the  story  runs. 

The  first  Block  Island  hotel  was  opened  in  1842,  but 
not  until  thirty  years  later  did  the  island  really  begin 
to  develop  into  the  popular  resort  it  has  now  become. 


The  waterside  at  Wickford 
King   Philip   and   His   Narragansett   Allies 

NEAR  the  old  Rhode  Island  town  of  Bristol  is 
Mount  Hope,  where  that  most  famous  of  New 
England  Indians,  King  Philip,  dwelt,  and  where  he 
met  his  tragic  death.  It  is  a  hill  rather  than  a  moun- 
tain, and  its  treeless  rounded  summit  is  thinly  grassed 


King   Philip  and   His  Allies  221 

pasturage.  The  most  flourishing  growths  there  are 
huckleberry  bushes,  goldenrod,  and  thistles.  The 
mount  is  at  the  end  of  a  peninsula,  and  round  about 
are  irregular  inlets  from  the  sea.  King  Philip's  vil- 
lage was  at  the  foot  of  a  rude  crag  where  there  was 
a  good  spring,  and  where  it  was  sheltered  from  the 
rough  northwest  winds. 

Philip's  father,  Massasoit,  maintained  friendship 
with  the  whites,  sold  them  land,  and  fed  them  when 
they  were  starving ;  but  as  Philip  grew  older  he  per- 
ceived the  increasing  power  of  the  English  with  alarm. 
They  were  overrunning  the  whole  country.  At  length 
he  determined  to  act,  and  he  journeyed  from  tribe  to 
tribe  inciting  them  to  unite  against  the  white  men. 

The  struggle  began  in  1675,  and  many  an  exposed 
English  village  was  wiped  out,  and  hundreds  of  the 
settlers'  lives  were  sacrificed.  Late  that  year  the 
greatest  battle  of  the  war  was  fought  in  the  southern 
part  of  Rhode  Island  not  far  from  Kingston.  There 
nearly  two  thousand  Narragansett  Indians,  including 
women  and  children,  had  taken  refuge  on  a  piece  of 
rising  ground,  five  or  six  acres  in  extent,  in  the  middle 
of  a  "hideous  swamp."  They  planned  to  pass  the 
winter  on  this  swamp  island,  and  they  erected  on  it 
five  hundred  bark  wigwams,  which  they  lined  with 
skins  and  made  bullet  proof  by  piling  around  the 
inner  sides  baskets  and  tubs  full  of  corn  and  dried 
fish.  The  tubs  were  sections  of  hollow  trees  cut  off 
about  the  length  of  a  barrel.     The  Indians  fenced  in 


222 


New   England 


the  island  with  a  strong  stockade  of  logs  set  on  end, 
outside  of  which  trees  were  cut  down  to  form  a  hedge 
a  rod  wide.    The  single  door  in  the  palisade  was  guarded 

by  a  block- 
house, and  near 
by  a  big  fallen 
tree  afforded 
passage  over 
the  encircling 
water. 

An  army  of 
eleven  hundred 
whites  from  the 
colonies  of 
Massachusetts, 
Plymouth,  and 
Connecticut, 
and  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty 
friendly  In- 
dians, prepared 
to  assail  this 
stronghold. 
Winter  was 
setting  in  when  the  expedition  started,  and  the  men 
who  had  to  go  farthest  were  nearly  a  month  on  the 
way.  On  the  eighteenth  of  December,  when  they 
approached  the  swam]),  their  provisions  were  getting 
so   low   that   they   decided   to   attack   the  next  day. 


A  lurking  Indian 


King   Philip  and   His  Allies  223 

Fires  were  built,  and  by  their  hght  guns  were  cleaned 
and  everything  made  ready.  The  troops  had  no 
tents,  and  they  slept  in  the  open,  with  no  other 
blankets  than  a  "moist  fleece  of  snow." 

They  were  up  at  five  o'clock  the  following  morning, 
and  began  the  toilsome  march  by  a  roundabout  route 
to  the  fort  in  the  swamp.  An  Indian  who  had  quar- 
relled with  his  fellows  joined  them  and  was  enticed  by 
the  promise  of  a  reward  to  act  as  their  guide.  They 
arrived  before  the  Narragansett  stronghold  soon  after 
noon  of  the  short  winter  day.  The  cold  was  extreme, 
and  the  air  was  filled  with  falling  snow.  Some  of  the 
soldiers  ran  out  on  the  tree  trunk  which  bridged  the 
water  opposite  the  entrance,  but  were  swept  off  by 
the  bullets  of  the  Indians'  guns.  More  pressed  for- 
ward only  to  share  the  same  fate. 

But  a  little  party  of  whites  went  around  to  the  other 
side  of  the  island  and  found  a  way  across  the  partially 
frozen  swamp  up  to  the  palisades.  They  climbed  on 
each  other's  shoulders,  fought  their  way  over  the 
ramparts,  and  contended  with  the  Indians  hand  to 
hand  inside  of  the  fort.  More  of  the  soldiers  came  to 
their  assistance  and  hacked  a  breach  through  the  stock- 
ade. 

Meanwhile  the  assault  at  the  front  had  been  re- 
newed, and  presently  the  entrance  was  stormed. 
All  the  English  were  soon  in  the  fort,  but  the  Indian 
resistance  was  stubborn,  and  the  assailants  could  only 
force  the  foe  back  foot  by  foot.     Then  the  wigwams 


2  24  New   England 

were  set  on  fire,  and  the  wind  swept  the  flames  through 
the  crowded  fort.  The  women  and  children  fled  from 
the  burning  huts  and  mingled  their  cries  and  shrieks 
with  the  yelling  of  the  warriors.  Many  were  killed 
and  many  perished  in  the  flames.  The  rest  escaped 
to  the  woods. 

At  the  end  of  three  hours  the  victory  of  the  whites 
was  complete,  and  they  started  on  an  eighteen  mile 
march  in  the  storm  and  cold  to  the  little  village  of 
Wickford.  They  had  lost  six  captains  and  over  twenty 
men,  and  there  were  one  hundred  and  fifty  wounded. 
Those  of  the  wounded  who  were  unable  to  walk  were 
carried  on  litters  made  of  muskets  and  saplings.  For 
the  first  three  miles  of  their  journey  they  were  lighted 
through  the  woods  by  the  flames  of  the  burning  wig- 
wams. It  was  after  midnight  when  they  arrived  at 
Wickford,  and  twenty-two  of  the  wounded  had  died 
on  the  march.  Some  of  the  party  lost  their  way  and 
wandered  amid  the  storm  until  morning. 

About  four  hundred  of  the  Indians  had  been  killed, 
including  warriors,  old  men,  women,  and  children. 
Their  provisions  and  shelters  had  been  burned,  and 
the  survivors  faced  famine  in  the  middle  of  the  winter. 
The  hornets'  nest  had  been  destroyed,  but  most  of  the 
hornets  were  still  loose,  and  the  plight  of  the  exhausted 
troops  was  little  better  than  that  of  the  foe.  Only  the 
timely  arrival  on  the  very  night  after  the  battle  of  a 
sloop  loaded  with  food  supplies  from  Boston  saved 
the  little  army  from  terrible  suffering. 


King   Philip   and   His   Allies 


225 


The  war  continued  the  next  year,  and  the  English 
lost  heavily  in  lives  and  property.  But  the  Indians' 
loss  was  far  greater,  and  one  by  one  the  confederate 
tribes  abandoned  Philip  to  his  fate.  When  at  last  his 
wife  and  only  son  were  taken  prisoners,  he  exclaimed  : 
"  My  heart 
breaks !  Now 
I  am  ready  to 
die!" 

The  son  was 
a  child  of  nine. 
The  Puritans, 
who  owed  so 
much  to  his 
grandfather, 
sold  him  as  a 
slave  in  Ber- 
muda. 

Summer  came,  and  Philip  with  a  few  followers 
wandered  back  to  Mount  Hope  and  encamped  near  it 
on  a  knoll  in  a  swamp.  There  the  forces  fighting 
Philip  surprised  and  killed  him. 

The  spot  where  he  met  his  death  has  been  marked 
with  a  stone.  If  you  visit  it  you  will  find  it  swamp  still, 
and  probably  its  appearance  has  changed  little  with 
the  passing  centuries. 


On  the  seaward  slope  of  Mount  Hope, 
the  home  of  King  Philip 


The  old  stone  mill  in  a  Newport  park 
A   City  of  Pleasure 

RHODE  ISLAND  is  noteworthy  for  the  number  and 
importance  of  its  summer  resorts.  These  inckide 
Newport,  Narragansett  Pier,  Watch  Hill,  and  Block 
Island.  The  first  is  the  most  famous  fasliionable  re- 
sort in  America.     It  is  on  an  island  in  Narragansett 

226 


A   City  of  Pleasure  227 

Bay.  The  Indian  name  for  the  island  was  Aquidneck, 
which  means  "The  Isle  of  Peace."  It  is  about  fifteen 
miles  long,  but  for  the  most  part  is  very  narrow.  The 
early  settlers  called  it  Rhode  Island,  probably  because 
it  was  in  a  bay  that  furnished  good  anchorage.  The 
word  rhode,  or  r-o-a-d,  as  it  is  more  correctly  spelled,  is 
used  by  sailors  to  designate  just  such  an  anchoring  place. 

Aquidneck's  first  settlers  came  in  1636  as  the  result 
of  a  violent  theological  dispute  in  Boston.  Mrs.  Anne 
Hutchinson,  whose  teachings  were  the  cause  of  the 
disturbance,  was  banished  from  Massachusetts.  She 
and  some  of  her  friends  and  partisans  bought  the  isl- 
and of  Aquidneck  from  the  Indians  for  forty  fathoms 
of  wampum,  twenty  hoes,  and  ten  coats.  After  re- 
siding a  few  years  on  the  island  Mrs.  Hutchinson  moved 
to  the  western  borders  of  Connecticut,  where  the  In- 
dians cruelly  murdered  her  with  nearly  all  her  children 
and  servants  —  sixteen  victims  in  all. 

Newport  first  won  fame  as  a  slave  port  —  the 
greatest  in  America.  For  a  long  time  eighteen  hun- 
dred hogsheads  of  rum  were  carried  annually  to  Africa 
to  be  exchanged  for  negroes,  gold-dust,  and  ivory  ;  and 
numerous  distilleries  were  operated  in  the  town.  The 
wharves  were  crowded  with  vessels  loading  for  Guinea. 
Besides  rum  a  ship  would  take  on  board  provisions, 
muskets,  and  powder,  and  an  assortment  of  shackles. 
Presently  it  would  sail,  "bound  by  God's  grace  for 
the  coast  of  Africa,"  as  the  bill  of  lading  would  piously 
declare. 


2  28  New   England 

After  the  outward  voyage  ended  there  was  sometimes 
a  good  deal  of  difficulty  in  securing  slaves  from  the 
native  chiefs ;  and  one  Newport  captain  wrote  in 
1753,  "The  trade -is  so  dull  it  is  actually  enough  to 
drive  a  man  crazy."  About  one  hundred  and  twenty 
captives  made  a  cargo.  They  were  stowed  in  a  space 
between  decks  that  was  three  feet  and  ten  inches  in 
height.  There  the  women  were  given  their  freedom, 
but  the  men  w^ere  kept  shackled.  None  of  the  grown 
persons  could  stand  upright  or  move  about  with  any 
comfort. 

Slaves  were  owned  for  domestic  servants  by  every 
well-to-do  Newport  family.  They  had  three  failings: 
they  were  fond  of  rum,  they  would  steal,  and  they 
would  run  away.  Slave  labor  in  New  England  was 
never  a  source  of  much  profit.  Most  of  the  slaves 
brought  across  the  ocean  in  the  Newport  brigantines 
were  sold  at  Barbadoes,  or  at  Charleston,  South 
Carolina. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  Revolution  Newport  was 
commercially  more  important  than  New  York.  Tlie 
British  took  possession  of  it  early  in  the  war.  On 
December  7,  1776,  eleven  square-rigged  enemy  vessels, 
together  with  a  convoy  of  seventy  transports  carry- 
ing six  thousand  troops,  entered  Narragansett  Bay 
and  dropped  anchor.  The  troops  established  them- 
selves in  and  around  Newport. 

The  next  summer  the  Yankees  caused  a  very  great 
sensation  by  capturing  the  British  commander,  Gen- 


A   City   of  Pleasure  229 

eral  Prescott.  He  often  left  his  Newport  headquarters 
to  stay  overnight  at  the  home  of  a  loyalist  named 
Overing  who  lived  a  half  dozen  miles  to  the  north, 
near  the  west  shore  of  the  island.  A  regiment  of 
Americans  was  stationed  on  the  mainland  at  Tiverton, 
east  of  the  upper  end  of  the  island,  and  Major  Barton, 
one  of  its  officers,  learned  from  deserters  of  General 
Prescott's  nocturnal  visits.  He  soon  contrived  a 
scheme  for  kidnapping  the  general,  and  set  out  on  the 
expedition  with  forty  selected  men  in  whaleboats. 

On  the  night  of  July  9th,  they  were  at  Warwick  on 
the  west  side  of  the  bay,  and  from  there  rowed  swiftly 
toward  their  destination.  They  had  to  pass  a  part 
of  the  British  fleet,  but  were  not  detected.  After 
they  landed  they  tramped  a  mile  to  the  Overing  house, 
and  secured  the  sentinel  on  guard.  Then  they  forced 
the  main  door  and  found  Prescott  sitting  bewildered 
in  a  lower  chamber  on  the  side  of  his  bed.  They  only 
gave  him  time  to  don  his  breeches,  waistcoat,  and 
slippers,  and  marched  him  off  with  his  aide  and  the 
sentinel  to  the  boats.  He  was  conveyed  safely  to 
Providence,  where  a  day  or  two  afterward  there  ar- 
rived from  Newport  under  a  flag  of  truce  his  entire 
wardrobe,  including  his  purse,  his  hair  powder,  and  a 
plentiful  supply  of  perfumery.  Congress  rewarded 
Barton  with  promotion  and  the  gift  of  a  sword. 

The  British  occupied  Newport  for  three  years.  At 
the  time  of  their  exit  in  October,  1779,  their  general 
ordered  that  the  shutters  of  the  town  buildings  be 


23< 


New   England 


closed,  and  none  of  the  people  was  allowed  on  the  streets 
as  the  troops  marched  to  their  ships. 

When  the  British  left,  the  place  was  only  a  shadow 
of  its  former  self.  About  three  hundred  houses  had 
been  destroyed,  and  the  town  was  in  ruins.  Groves 
and  orchards  roundabout  had  been  laid  waste,  and 
many  of  the  rows  of  trees  which  lined  the  island  roads 
had  been  cut  down. 

A  Newport  letter  written  in  1822  says,  "The  wharves 
are  deserted,  and  the  people  are  now  so  poor  that  there 


The  rocky  shore  ai  Newport 


are  not  more  than  ten  or  a  dozen  families  who  would 
have  the  courage  to  invite  a  stranger  to  their  table." 
The  introduction  of  railroads  made  the  case  of  New- 


A   City  of  Pleasure 


231 


port  still  more  hopeless.  Other  places  were  better 
situated  for  modern  transportation  on  the  land  and 
traffic  on  the  sea,  and  it  had  no  water  power  to  enable 
it  to  turn  to  manufacturing.  Many  of  its  people, 
therefore,  went  elsewhere  to  seek  a  livelihood. 


One  of  the  Newport  mansions 

But  about  the  middle  of  the  century  a  wave  of 
fashion  swept  into  Newport.  The  "first  families"  of 
Virginia  and  other  Southern  states  came  with  servants 
and  horses  in  their  own  schooners  from  Richmond, 
Charleston,  and  Savannah  to  enjoy  the  summer  lux- 
ury of  a  Northern  watering-place.  Its  attractions  were 
a  salubrious  climate,  remarkably  mild  without  extremes 
of  heat  or  cold  the  year  through,  wide  ocean  prospects 
from  its  cliffs,  extensive  bathing  beaches,  and  a  delight- 
ful  historic    afterglow.     So,    though    the   huge    East 


232 


New   England 


Indiamen  and  small  trim  slavers  had  disappeared,  and 
the'  wharves  and  slave  pens  were  falling  to  decay, 
prosperity  revived. 

Since  the  Civil  War  Newport  has  been  to  a  some- 
what predominant  degree  the  resort  of  New  Yorkers 
of  wealth  and  fashion.  Their  Newport,  however,  is 
off  on  the  outskirts  of  the  old  town  and  is  a  settlement 
by  itself.  There  the  "big-bugs,"  as  they  are  some- 
times called  by 
the  humbler 
islanders,  have 
built  their  man- 
sions on  an 
upland  that 
juts  seaward 
with  a  long 
ragged  front- 
age of  cliffs. 
The  offlook 
afforded  is  delightful,  and  the  situation  is  ideal  in  its 
breezy  summer  coolness.  A  notable  attraction  of  this 
vicinity  is  the  Cliff  Walk,  which  runs  for  three  miles 
along  the  brow  of  the  bluffs  that  front  the  ocean.  On 
the  landward  side  are  the  beautiful  grounds  and 
magnificent  palaces  of  the  summer  colony,  and  in  the 
other  direction  you  can  toss  a  pebble  into  the  sea. 

Certain  of  those  who  belong  to  the  fashionable  New- 
port set  go  to  astonishing  extremes  in  entertaining 
themselves.     They  like  to  create  a  sensation,  and   it 


The  arch  on  the  cliff  walk 


A   City   of  Pleasure 


233 


is  recorded  that  in  one  instance  they  took  a  pig  out 
to  ride  in  an  automobile  in  order  to  do  something 
really  "new." 

The  part  of 
the  place  that 
was  once  so 
flourishing  as 
a  seaport,  is 
now  a  rather 
quiet  and  ordi- 
nary old  village 
with  the  nar- 
row streets  and 
quaint  crowded 
wooden  build- 
ings character- 
istic of  so  many 
of  the  colonial 
towns  along 
the  New  Eng- 
land coast. 
One  of  its 
streets  which 
impresses  the  traveller  with  its  name,  is  Farewell 
Street,  so  called  because  it  leads  to  the  cemetery. 
There  is  very  little  of  the  old  sea  traffic  now,  but 
every  evening  the  place  is  startled  out  of  its  dreams, 
after  the  curfew  has  rung,  by  the  arrival  of  a  huge 
Sound  steamer,  which  glides  along   with  a  subdued 


In  Newport  harbor 


2  34  New   England 

noise  of  parting  waters,  and,  with  its  multitude  of 
electric  lights,  shines  like  a  street  in  the  New  Jerusalem. 
Although  the  harbor  continues  to  be  used  by  the  fish- 
ing fleet,  costly  yachts  often  outnumber  the  fishing 
boats  there. 

Ne^vport's  most  widely  famed  relic  of  the  past  is 
what  is  known  as  "The  Old  Stone  Mill"  in  one  of  the 
city  parks.  It  is  a  low  circular  tower  supported  on 
eight  arches.  Formerly  there  was  a  floor  above  the 
arches  making  a  second  story  to  the  building.  The 
walls  stand  firm,  and  probably  are  much  what  they  were 
in  the  first  place.  Little  is  known  with  certainty  about 
its  history  except  that  it  was  used  at  one  time  as  a 
storehouse  for  hay.  But  most  investigators  agree  that 
it  was  erected  for  a  windmill  by  an  early  governor  of 
the  colony  about  1675.  Others,  however,  claim  that 
it  was  built  by  the  Norsemen  hundreds  of  years  before 
Columbus  discovered  America. 

Longfellow  in  his  well-known  poem,  "The  Skeleton 
in  Armor,"  makes  it  the  home  of  a  bold  Norse  sailor 
and  his  bride.  This  Norseman  wooed  a  "blue-eyed 
maid"  in  his  native  land,  but  she  was  a  "prince's 
child,  and  he  only  a  Viking  wild."  When  he  asked 
to  be  allowed  to  marry  her,  the  father's  reply  was  a 
loud  laugh  of  scorn.  Soon  afterward  the  two  lovers  ran 
away  and  put  to  sea.  They  were  pursued,  and  they 
sailed  out  on  the  open  ocean  and  continued  westward 
for  three  weeks.  Then  they  came  to  land,  and  there 
for  his  lady's  bower  the  Viking  built  the  stone  tower 


A   City  of  Pleasure 

"Which  to  this  very  hour 
Stands  looking  seaward." 


235 


But  at  length  the  lady  died,  and  he  buried  her  under 
the  tower  and  killed  himself  by  falling  on  his  spear. 

The  skeleton  which  inspired  the  poem  was  unearthed 
in  digging  down  a  hill  near  the  neighboring  city  of  Fall 


1 

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jJH 

United  States  warships  in  Narragansett  Bay 

River.  The  body  had  been  buried  in  a  sitting  posture 
and  was  enveloped  in  a  covering  of  coarse  bark.  With 
the  skeleton  were  an  oval  breastplate  and  a  belt,  both  of 
brass,  and  some  brass-tipped  arrows  in  a  quiver  of 
bark  which  fell  to  pieces  as  soon  as  it  was  exposed  to 
the  air.  The  romantically  inclined  fancied  the  bones 
were  those  of  a  Norseman,  but  more  probably  they 
were  those  of  an  Indian. 


r'f^ 


Moonlight  at  Watch  Hill,  the  popular  jileasure  resort 
The  Smallest  State 

RHODE  ISLAND  is  the  smallest  state  in  the  Union, 
and  it  is  the  most  thickly  populated.  There  are 
more  than  five  hundred  persons  to  the  square  mile, 
while  Nevada  has  less  than  one  to  the  square  mile. 

The  settlement  of  the  state  was  begun  in  1636  by 

236 


The   Smallest   State  237 

that  famous  Puritan  preacher,  Roger  Williams.  He 
had  won  considerable  fame  in  England  before  he  came 
with  his  newly  wedded  wife  across  the  Atlantic  to 
Boston,  which  was  just  being  settled.  Soon  Salem 
called  him  to  be  its  minister,  but  his  preaching  aroused 
such  opposition  that  he  was  presently  banished  from 
the  colony.  To  escape  his  persecutors  he  left  home  at 
night  in  midwinter  and  fled  alone  through  the  deep 
snow  to  his  Indian  friend,  Massasoit,  with  whom  he 
stayed  until  spring.  Then  he  was  joined  by  five  of 
his  Salem  flock,  and  they  made  their  way  to  Rhode 
Island,  where  they  started  a  settlement  which  Mr. 
Williams  called  Providence.  The  name  expressed  his 
thankfulness  for  finding  there  a  satisfactory  spot  to 
establish  a  new  home  after  his  wanderings. 

The  liberty  of  conscience  allowed  in  the  colony 
made  it  a  popular  refuge,  and  more  and  more  people 
flocked  to  it  and  settled  along  the  shores  of  Narra- 
gansett  Bay.  There  were  fresh  water  meadows  and 
salt  marshes  that  served  as  pastures  for  their  horses 
and  cows,  and  on  which  they  mowed  grass  to  make  a 
winter  store  of  hay.  The  sheep  and  swine  were  turned 
loose  in  the  woods  and  on  the  barrens. 

Providence  for  a  long  time  grew  very  slowly.  In 
1740  it  was  much  as  it  had  been  for  a  half  century 
previous  —  a  long,  straggling  street  by  the  water 
front,  where,  on  summer  evenings,  the  inhabitants 
sat  in  their  doorways,  the  men  smoking  their  clay 
pipes,  and  they  and  all  the  rest  fighting  the  swarms 


238 


New   England 


of     mosquitoes     that    rose     from     the     neighboring 
marshes. 

One  of  the  most  noteworthy  incidents  in  the  history 
of  the  city  occurred  in  that  time  of  irritation  between 
the  colonies  and  the  mother  country  just  before  the 
Revolution.  In  March,  1772,  the  British  schooner 
Gaspee  of  eight  guns  took  station  in  Narragansett  Bay, 
and  began  stopping  and  searching  all  incoming  ves- 
sels to  prevent  the  smuggling  of  sugar  and  the  evasion 
of  paying  taxes  on  it.  This  went  much  against  the 
grain  of  the  colonists,  who  were  insistent  that  they 


The  Rhode  Island  State  House  at  Trovidence 


could  not  be  taxed  without  their  consent.  The  British 
admiral  at  Boston  assumed  that  the  Rhode  Islanders 
were  "a  set  of  lawless  piratical  people,"  and  threatened 


The   Smallest  State  239 

to  hang  any  of  them  caught  attempting  to  rescue  a 
vessel  from  the  king's  schooner. 

Early  in  June  a  sloop  called  the  Hannah,  on  her 
way  to  Providence,  was  chased  by  the  Gaspee  until  the 
latter  ran  aground  a  few  miles  below  the  city.  When 
the  Hannah  arrived  at  Providence  and  reported  the 
plight  of  the  Gaspee,  some  of  the  citizens  plotted  to  sur- 
prise the  offending  vessel.  A  number  of  long-boats 
were  collected,  the  oars  were  mufifled,  and  a  party  of 
fifty  men  embarked  soon  after  ten  o'clock  that  night. 
Presently  they  cajne  in  sight  of  the  schooner  and  ap- 
proached her  bows  so  as  to  avoid  her  guns.  The 
hail  of  the  single  man  on  watch  was  disregarded,  the 
crew  bent  to  their  oars,  and  in  a  few  seconds  the  boats 
were  alongside. 

Now  the  lieutenant  in  command  of  the  vessel  ap- 
peared on  deck.  He  called  all  hands,  and  some  pistols 
were  fired  at  the  boats.  Just  as  he  was  in  the  act  of 
slashing  with  his  sword  at  a  number  of  the  attacking 
party  who  were  climbing  into  the  forechains,  he  fell 
wounded  by  a  musket  ball.  There  was  no  more  re- 
sistance, the  crew  was  set  on  shore,  and  the  vessel  was 
burned  to  the  water's  edge. 

Great  was  the  excitement  over  this  event  in  the 
colonies  and  in  England.  Rich  rewards  were  promised 
for  the  discovery  of  the  perpetrators  of  the  deed,  and 
full  pardon  for  any  person  in  the  party  who  would 
betray  the  rest,  but  without  avail. 

Many  a  privateer  went  forth  from  Narragansett 


240 


New   England 


Bay  to  prey  on  British  commerce  in  the  War  of  181 2. 
One  of  these  vessels,  the  Yankee  of  Bristol,  made  six 
cruises,  captured  in  all  forty  prizes,  destroyed  property 


KalkhoffCo..  X.  Y. 


The  beach  at  Narragansett  Pier 

to  the  value  of  five  million  dollars,  and  sent  into  the 
home  port  a  million  dollars'  worth  of  goods.  On  one 
of  the  cruises  the  profits  were  so  great  that  the  two 
negro  cabin  waiters.  Coffee  Cockroach  and  Jack  Jib- 
sheet,  received  for  their  share  about  a  thousand  dollars 
apiece. 

Bristol  used  to  have  its  whaleships,  merchant  ships, 
and  brigs.  Hundreds  of  men  w^ould  be  busy  at  the 
wharves  loading  the  vessels  or  hoisting  out  the  oil  and 
hemp  and  iron,  the  sugar,  coffee,  molasses,  and  other 
imports.  Near  at  hand  were  coopers  making  casks  for 
the  whalemen,  and  blacksmiths  making  harpoons  and 
chains,  and  shoemakers  making  shoes,  and  tailors  mak- 
ing  clothing  for  the  sailors.     There  was  a  shipyard 


The   Smallest   State 


241 


where  vessels  were  being  built,  and  sail-lofts  where 
sails  were  made,  and  long  sheds  in  which  hemp  was 
twisted  into  ropes.  The  town  still  has  its  shipyard, 
whence  have  come  the  noted  yachts  that  have  de- 
fended the  America's  Cup  against  British  challengers. 
Torpedo  boats  for  the  navy  are  also  built  at  Bristol. 


A  Erislol  wluirl 


Near  the  head  of  the  bay  oysters  and  scallops  are 
dredged  in  the  shallow  waters,  and  clams  are  dug  on 
the  mud  flats.  Lobsters  are  taken  in  the  deeper  water 
outside  of  the  bay,  and  there  are  little  vessels  that  go 
cruising  after  fish.  Many  of  the  shell-fish  and  other 
fish  are  sent  by  the  steamers  or  trains  to  the  markets 
of  Boston  and  New  York. 


242  New   England 

In  the  warmer  part  of  the  year  great  schools  of 
menhaden  appear  in  the  shoal  waters  about  Long 
Island.  These  are  a  small  fish,  too  bony  and  oily  to 
be  valued  for  food,  but  large  numbers  are  seined  and 
taken  to  the  factories  at  Tiverton  where  the  oil  is  ex- 
tracted, and  the  remainder  made  into  fertilizer. 

The  sea  cuts  deeply  into  Rhode  Island  and  there 
are  good  harbors  near  the  falls  on  the  streams  that 
empty  into  the  upper  end  of  this  inreach.  A  profitable 
commerce  early  developed  at  the  inland  harbors,  and 
some  of  the  capital  gained  was  invested  in  manufac- 
turing at  the  adjacent  falls.  The  combination  of  abun- 
dant water-power  and  a  convenient  situation  for  send- 
ing and  receiving  goods  both  by  water  and  by  land, 
has  resulted  in  developing  a  manufacturing  community 
in  the  state  that  for  its  size  is  unrivalled  in  the  value 
of  its  product.  This  is  what  has  made  Providence, 
next  to  Boston,  the  largest  of  New  England  cities. 

The  population  of  the  state  is  not  very  evenly  dis- 
tributed. Four-fifths  of  the  people  live  at  the  head  of 
Narragansett  Bay  and  along  the  rivers  that  enter  it. 
These  rivers  are  neither  large  nor  long,  but  they 
make  a  rapid  descent  from  a  backlying  hill  country 
and  furnish  a  great  deal  of  water-power.  Manufac- 
turing places  are  numerous  along  them,  and  many 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  people  dwell  in  the  single 
valley  of  the  Blackstone  River. 

The  successful  manufacture  of  cotton  in  America 
dates  from  1790,  when  an  Englishman  who  understood 


The  Smallest  State 


243 


the  method  of  manufacture  in  his  homeland,  and  who 
had  recently  come  across  the  Atlantic,  interested  some 
Rhode  Island  capitalists,  and  started  a  mill  at  Paw- 
tucket.     He  superintended   the  making  of  new  ma- 


Pawlucket  mills  beside  the  Blackslone  River 

chines,  and  the  firm  with  which  he  was  associated 
had  for  a  dozen  years  the  only  successful  cotton  mill 
in  New  England.  In  this  same  vicinity  are  now  some 
of  the  largest  cotton  mills  in  the  world. 

Before  the  cotton  fibre  can  be  spun  into  thread  it 
has  to  be  freed  from  the  clinging  black  seeds.  This 
used  to  be  a  very  slow  process.  A  negro  on  one  of  the 
old-time  Southern  plantations  could  work  diligently 
all  day  picking  the  seeds  out,  and  only  have  a  pound 
of  cotton  to  show  for  his  labor.  As  a  result  cotton  was 
too  expensive  to  be  generally  used,  and  very  little 
was  cultivated.  But  when  Eli  Whitney  invented  the 
cotton  gin,  a  great  change  took  place.     A  modern  gin 


244  New   England 

can  seed  fifteen  bales  in  a  day,  a  task  which  would 
need  several  thousand  men  to  accomplish  in  the  old 
way. 

After  a  bale  has  reached  the  mill  and  been  torn  open, 
the  machinery  first  frees  the  fibre  from  all  dust  and 
dirt  and  clinging  leaves.  By  means  of  blowing  and 
beating  it  is  made  as  clean  and  fair  as  the  driven 
snow.  Then  great  rollers  studded  with  fine  wire  teeth 
claw  at  the  mass  of  cotton  till  the  .fibres  lie  smooth  and 
straight  in  a  fluffy  white  rope.  This  passes  through 
other  machines,  and  finally  appears  as  a  fine  cotton 
thread.  The  thread  is  converted  into  cloth  by  looms 
run  by  water-power,  steam,  or  electricity. 

The  finished  cloth  is  sent  to  all  parts  of  the  United 
States,  and  to  many  distant  countries  across  the 
sea.  About  half  the  people  of  the  world  wear  cotton 
clothes. 

Rhode  Island  continues  to  be  a  leader  in  cotton 
manufacturing,  and  among  its  other  important  manu- 
factures are  woolen  goods,  machinery,  and  rubber  foot- 
wear. Scores  of  factories  in  Providence  are  devoted 
to  making  jewelry  and  silverware,  and  in  this  city  is 
the  greatest  screw  factory  in  the  world.  The  place  was 
at  one  time  a  lumber-shipping  port,  for  there  was  much 
timber  in  the  region  that  lay  back  from  the  bay  and 
streams.  This  was  uninvaded  wilderness  for  many 
years  after  the  settling  of  the  watersides,  but  now  the 
wooded  tracts  of  the  uplands  and  swamps  yield  little 
except  firewood. 


The   Smallest   State 


245 


The  highest  point  in  Rhode  Island  is  Durfee  Hill, 
which  rises  805  feet  above  the  sea  level  on  the  north- 
western border  of  the  state. 


In  a  Rhode  Island  field  near  Newport 


Among  the  leaders  in  the  Revolution  the  general  who, 
next  to  Washington,  did  his  country  the  greatest  ser- 
vice, was  Nathanael  Greene  of  Rhode  Island.  He  was 
born  in  1742  at  Warwick,  about  ten  miles  south  of 
Providence.  His  father  was  a  Quaker,  who  owned 
flour  and  grist  mills,  and  was  a  man  of  wealth  for  those 
days,  but  who  thought  the  only  education  his  sons 
needed  was  to  learn  to  read,  write,  and  cipher.  This 
did  not  satisfy  Nathanael,  and  when  he  earned  money 
he  spent  it  for  books  from  which  to  acquire  knowledge. 
At  the  age  of  twenty  he  began  to  read  law  and  take 


246 


New   England 


an  interest  in  politics,  and  he  helped  to  organize  a  body 
of  militia  in  his  home  region.  As  soon  as  the  news  of 
Lexington  and  Concord  reached  Rhode  Island,  he  and 
three  others  promptly  galloped  toward  Boston  to  offer 
themselves   as  soldiers.     The   colony  made  him   the 

commander  of 
its  troops,  and 
he  served  with 
distinction  all 
through  the 
war. 

Twenty  miles 
down  the  shore 
of  the  bay  from 
Warwick,  at 
North  Kings- 
ton, was  born 
in  1756  Gilbert  Stuart,  one  of  the  greatest  of  American 
painters.  For  a  good  many  years  he  lived  in  London, 
where  he  won  a  notable  reputation.  When  he  returned 
in  1793  he  painted  portraits  of  Washington  and  other 
distinguished  Americans  that  in  lifelikeness  and  charm 
of  color  could  hardly  be  surpassed. 

South  Kingston  was  the  birthplace  of  Oliver  Hazard 
Perry,  the  most  picturesque  naval  hero  of  the  War  of 
181 2  and  the  commander  of  our  fleet  in  the  famous 
Battle  of  Lake  Erie. 


The  birthplace  of  Gilbert  Stuart,  the 
famous  painter 


(OKalklioxrCo..  .V.  y. 


Birches  beside  Lake  Winnepesaukee 
Early   New   Hampshire 

NEW  HAiMPSHIRE  and  its  seaport  are  indebted 
for  their  names  to  Captain  John  Mason,  an  Eng- 
Ush  merchant  and  shipmaster  to  whom  the  region  was 
granted  by  the  king  in  1629.     The  name  of  the  colony 

was  suggested  by  that  of  a  county  in  southern  England, 

247 


248  New  England 

where  Mason  lived  for  years  as  mayor  of  the  city  of 
Portsmouth. 

The  first  settlements  were  made  in  1623  at  Dover, 
a  few  miles  up  the  Piscataqua,  and  Rye  on  the  coast. 
A  scattered  settlement  estabhshed  somewhat  later  at 
the  mouth  of  the  river  received  the  odd  name  of  Straw- 
berry Bank.  Mason  sent  over  implements  and  arms, 
food  and  clothing,  cattle,  and  laborers ;  and  he  says, 
in  a  letter  written  in  1634,  that  for  his  outlay  he  had 
never  received  one  penny. 

In  1639  there  were  four  primitive  little  towns  in  the 
colony.  Within  the  next  few  years  these  were  taken 
one  at  a  time  under  the  protection  of  Massachusetts, 
and  New  Hampshire  did  not  have  a  separate  organi- 
zation again  until  about  1680. 

For  a  long  time  the  leading  man  of  the  province  was 
Richard  Waldron  of  Dover,  and  he  was  at  length  made 
sergeant-major  of  its  military  forces.  He  was  largely 
engaged  in  trading  with  the  Indians,  and  though  a 
thorough  Puritan  in  his  religion,  cheated  them  at  every 
opportunity.  It  is  said  that  he  did  not  cross  out 
their  accounts  when  they  paid  him,  and  that  in  buying 
beaver  skins  he  would  use  his  fist  as  a  balancing  weight 
against  the  skins  put  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  scales, 
and  claim  it  weighed  a  pound. 

After  King  Philip's  War  had  been  in  progress  a  few 
months,  Major  Waldron  gave  the  master  of  a  vessel 
which  was  about  to  visit  the  Maine  coast  a  warrant 
to  seize  any  Indians  he  found  in  those  parts.     The 


Early  New   Hampshire 


249 


result  was  that  the  ship-master  invited  some  of  the 
natives  on  board  his  vessel  and  carried  them  away  to 
sell  them  into  slavery.  Their  tribe  was  naturally 
much  enraged. 

Another  charge  against  Major  Waldron  was  that  he 
had  gone  to  some  of  the  Indians  when  they  were  at 
peace  with  the  English  and  taken  away  their  guns,  for 
lack  of  which  several  of  them  starved  to  death.  It 
was  also  asserted  that  he  gave  drink  to  certain  Indians, 
and  when  they  were  drunk  killed  them. 


Mount  Monadnock 

But  what  stirred  the  Indians  most  was  an  occurrence 
in    September,    1776.     Philip    was    dead,    and    many 


250  New   England 

savages  had  strayed  northward,  and,  after  preying  on 
the  inhabitants  of  New  Hampshire,  took  refuge  with 
the  local  Indians  who  had  remained  friendly  to  the 
whites.  A  Massachusetts  force  of  one  hundred  and 
thirty  English,  and  forty  Indian  allies,  came  up  to 
Dover  intent  on  attacking  the  refugee  Indians.  But 
Major  Waldron  contrived  a  plan  for  capturing  them  by 
a  ruse.  At  his  invitation  four  hundred  of  them  gathered 
on  the  borders  of  the  settlement.  The  Massachusetts 
troops,  and  as  many  New  Hampshire  men  as  could  be 
collected,  met  the  Indians  in  an  apparently  friendly 
way  to  engage  in  a  sham  fight.  After  going  through 
several  manoeuvres  Major  Waldron  ordered  a  grand 
round  of  musketry.  The  Indians  promptly  discharged 
their  guns,  but  the  English  withheld  their  fire  and 
surrounded  and  took  into  custody  the  entire  company 
without  bloodshed.  Then  two  hundred  of  the  lately 
hostile  Indians  were  selected  from  the  rest  and  car- 
ried off  to  Boston.  Several  of  them  were  executed 
there,  and  the  others  were  sold  into  slavery. 

The  local  Indians  never  forgave  this  treachery. 
Twelve  years  passed,  and  then  they  allied  themselves 
with  a  neighboring  tribe  for  revenge.  In  the  latter 
part  of  June,  1688,  many  of  them  resorted  to  Dover 
ostensibly  to  trade.  Some  of  the  villagers  expressed 
to  Waldron  fears  of  an  outbreak,  but  he  bade  them  go 
and  plant  their  pumpkins,  and  leave  him  to  deal  with 
the  Indians. 

There   were   five    garrison    houses   in    the    village 


Early   New   Hampshire 


251 


which  had  grown  up  near  Major  Waldron's  grist  and 
saw  mill  at  the  Cocheco  Falls.  Each  was  surrounded 
with  timber  walls,  the  gates  of  which  as  well  as  the 
house  doors  were  secured  with  bolts  and  bars.  The 
families  in  the  unprotected  houses  retired  to  these 
garrison  houses  at  night,  but  no  watch  was  kept.     It 


An  old  Dover  garrison  house  that  the  Indians  failed 

to   destroy   when  they   burned   many  neighboring 

buildings  in  1688 

was  arranged  by  the  Indians  that  on  the  evening  of  the 
twenty-seventh  of  the  month  two  squaws  should  ap- 
ply at  each  of  the  garrison  houses  for  lodging.  Such 
requests  were  not  unusual,  and  only  at  one  of  the 
fortified  dwellings  was  admittance  refused. 

When  every  one  had  gone  to  bed  and  all  was  quiet, 
the  squaw  visitors  opened  the  doors  and  the  gates, 
and  in  rushed  the  Indian  warriors  who  were  waiting 


252  New   England 

outside.  Major  Waldron  was  awakened  by  the  noise, 
and  he  hastily  pulled  on  his  trousers  and  seized  his 
sword.  Though  eighty  years  of  age  he  met  the  Indians 
at  the  door  of  his  room,  and  put  them  to  flight,  but  as 
he  was  going  back  to  get  other  weapons,  one  of  the 
savages  stole  up  behind  him  and  stunned  him  with  the 
blow  of  a  tomahawk.  Then  they  seized  him,  dragged 
him  into  his  dining-room,  put  his  arm-chair  on  the 
long  table,  and  bound  him  in  it.  Often  in  the  years 
past  he  had  sat  at  the  table  as  justice  of  the  peace 
settling  the  disputes  of  both  the  English  and  the 
Indians. 

"Who  shall  judge  the  Indians  now?"  his  captors 
asked. 

After  forcing  the  people  in  the  house  to  feed  them, 
they  smote  the  major  with  their  knives  saying  with 
each  stroke,  "I  cross  out  my  account  !" 

At  last  they  killed  him  and  set  fire  to  the  building. 
In  all  they  burned  six  houses  and  the  mills  at  the  ad- 
jacent falls,  and  they  killed  twenty-three  persons  and 
captured  twenty-nine. 

One  of  the  most  notable  of  New  Hampshire  men 
in  colonial  times  was  General  John  Stark,  the  hero  of 
Bennington.  He  was  born  in  1728  at  Londonderry, 
where  his  father  was  one  of  the  early  settlers  on  what 
was  then  the  New  England  frontier.  Eight  years  later 
the  family  moved  a  few  miles  north  to  Manchester. 

They  depended  in  part  for  their  living  on  hunting 
and  trapping,  and  in  the  spring  of  1752  John  and  his 


Early   New   Hampshire  253 

older  brother,  WiUiam,  and  two  comrades  named  Stin- 
son  and  Eastman  went  in  a  canoe  on  an  excursion  after 
furs  to  Baker's  River  in  what  is  now  Rumney  in  the 
central  part  of  the  state.  Late  in  April,  while  John 
was  visiting  their  traps,  the  Indians  surprised  and 
captured  him.  They  wanted  him  to  show  them  where 
his  companions  were,  but  he  led  them  in  the  opposite 
direction. 

Unfortunately  his  friends  became  alarmed  at  his 
absence,  for  which  they  did  not  at  first  suspect  the 
real  reason,  and  they  discharged  a  gun  several  times  as 
a  signal.  That  betrayed  them  to  the  savages,  who 
turned  back  and  stealthily  approached  the  hunters' 
encampment.  The  three  men  had  now  concluded  that 
John  had  fallen  into  the  hands  of  the  Indians,  and 
they  were  preparing  to  leave.  After  the  savages  had 
secretly  observed  what  the  hunters  were  doing,  they 
concealed  themselves  beside  the  river  below  the  camp. 
Stinson  and  William  Stark  embarked  in  the  canoe. 
Eastman  made  his  way  along  the  bank,  but  had  not 
gone  far  when  he  was  taken  prisoner  by  the  Indians. 
John  shouted  a  warning  to  the  other  two,  and  they 
paddled  for  the  opposite  shore.  At  once  their  am- 
bushed enemies  fired,  killing  Stinson,  but  William  got 
away. 

The  Indians  took  their  two  captives  up  beyond 
Lake  Memphremagog  to  St.  Francis  in  Canada,  the 
dwelhng-place  of  their  tribe.  There  they  presently 
compelled    them    to    run    the    gantlet.     The    young 


254  New   England 

warriors,  each  armed  with  a  rod,  ranged  themselves  in 
two  hnes  a  few  feet  apart.  The  captives  were  to  run 
between  these  lines  from  the  far  end  to  the  council 
house  at  the  other  end.  Eastman  ran  first.  Every 
savage  struck  at  him  as  he  passed  along,  and  he  was 
severely  beaten. 

Stark,  who  was  more  athletic  and  adroit,  snatched 
a  rod  from  the  nearest  Indian,  and  as  he  ran  down  the 
lines  struck  right  and  left  scattering  the  savages  before 
him,  and  escaped  with  scarcely  a  blow.  The  old 
men  of  the  tribe,  who  sat  a  short  distance  away  looking 
on,  greatly  enjoyed  the  confusion  of  their  young  war- 
riors. 

One  day  Stark  was  ordered  to  hoe  corn.  He  well 
knew  that  the  Indians  regarded  such  labor  fit  only  for 
squaws  and  slaves,  and  he  took  care  to  cut  up  the  corn, 
and  spare  the  weeds,  in  order  to  give  them  the  idea 
that  he  lacked  skill  in  unmanly  labor.  When  this 
experiment  did  not  attain  his  object,  he  threw  his  hoe 
into  the  near-by  river  and  told  them  plainly  that  it 
was  not  the  business  of  a  warrior  to  hoe  corn.  His 
spirited  action  gained  him  the  title  of  ''Young  Chief," 
and  he  was  adopted  into  the  tribe. 

Not  long  afterward  he  and  Eastman  were  redeemed, 
and  they  returned  to  their  homes  after  an  absence  of 
four  months.  Stark  always  recalled  with  pleasure  this 
captivity,  and  said  that  he  received  more  genuine  kind- 
ness from  the  Indians  than  he  ever  knew  prisoners  of 
war  to  receive  from  any  civilized  nation.     He  often 


Early   New   Plampshire 


^55 


fought  them  later  in  the  service  of  his  state,  and  he 
did  his  part  vahantly  in  various  battles  of  the  Revolu- 
tion, beginning  with  Bunker  Hill.  He  died  at  the  age 
of  ninety-four  at  his  home  in  Manchester,  and  lies 
buried  there  on  rising  ground 
that  overlooks  the  Merrimac. 

New  Hampshire's  leading 
educational  institution  is 
Dartmouth  College  in  Hano- 
ver on  the  Connecticut  River. 
It  originated  in  a  plan  of 
Rev.  Eleazar  Wheelock  of 
Lebanon,  Connecticut,  for 
educating  Indian  youths  to 
be  missionaries.  He  thought 
that  such  missionaries  would 
succeed  among  their  fellows 
better  than  would  the  whites, 
and  he  began  his  labor  with 
two  Indian  lads  at  his  home 
in   Lebanon    in    1754.      The 

number  of  pupils  increased  until  eight  years  later  he 
had  more  than  twenty  under  his  care. 

To  aid  the  work  contributions  were  solicited  in  various 
parts  of  this  country,  and  also  in  England,  where  the 
money  collected  was  put  into  the  hands  of  a  board  of 
trustees  headed  by  the  Earl  of  Dartmouth.  Presently, 
when  Mr.  Wheelock  at  the  request  of  the  governor  of 
New  Hampshire,  removed  to  Hanover  to  establish  a 


One  of  the  attractive  old 
doorways  for  which  Ports- 
mouth is  famous 


256  New   England 

college  there,  he  gave  it  the  name  of  the  English 
earl. 

Mr.  Wheelock  set  out  for  his  new  home  in  August, 
1770,  and  his  family  and  pupils  soon  followed.  The 
pupils  numbered  twenty-four,  only  six  of  whom  were 
Indians ;  for  his  plan  of  making  Indian  missionaries 
had  not  succeeded  as  well  as  he  expected.  Of  forty 
Indian  youths  whom  he  had  educated,  half  had  re- 
turned to  savage  life. 

The  clergyman's  family  made  the  northward  journey 
in  a  coach,  and  the  pupils  walked.  As  they  went  on, 
the  roads  became  so  bad  they  could  hardly  get  along. 
But  at  last  they  reached  their  destination.  There, 
amid  a  forest  of  lofty  pines  on  an  extensive  plain,  a 
few  acres  of  the  trees  had  been  felled,  and  their  trunks 
and  boughs  covered  the  ground  in  all  directions.  Two 
or  three  small  log  huts  had  been  built,  but  these  were 
not  enough  to  shelter  all  the  newcomers,  and  many  of 
them  had  to  sleep  several  -nights  on  the  ground  with 
pine  boughs  for  beds,  and  sheltered  from  the  dews  and 
rains  by  a  few  boards  raised  over  them  on  poles. 

At  the  first  commencement  held  in  August,  1771,  the 
stage  was  an  outdoor  platform  of  rough-hewn  boards 
to  which  access  was  afforded  by  an  inclined  hemlock 
plank.  The  governor  of  the  colony  was  present  with 
a  retinue  of  forty  fine  gentlemen  from  Portsmouth, 
and  an  ox  was  roasted  whole  on  the  Green  and  served 
to  the  populace  at  the  governor's  expense. 


The  Flume 
The  White   Mountains 

THE  Appalachian  mountain  system,  which  forms 
the  eastern  rim  of  the  great  Mississippi  basin,  ex- 
tends from  Alabama  northward  through  New  England 
and  on  into  Canada.  There  are  many  ranges  in  this 
system,  for  the  most  part  running  parallel  with  each 

S  257 


258  New   England 

other,  and  between  the  mountain  ranges  are  rivers 
flowing  through  valleys  that  are  sometimes  narrow, 
and  sometimes  many  miles  broad.  The  highest  peaks 
are  in  North  Carolina,  but  Mount  Washington  in  the 
WTiite  Mountains  of  New  Hampshire  is  a  close  ri\^al. 

This  New  Hampshire  mountain  group  includes  no 
less  than  twenty  bold  peaks,  and  abounds  in  wild  val- 
leys, deep  gorges,  lakes,  and  cascades.  The  Indians 
held  the  White  Mountains  in  much  reverence,  and 
believed  them  to  be  the  abode  of  the  Great  Spirit. 
They  affirmed  that  no  one  who  scaled  the  sacred  heights 
returned  alive,  but  this  did  not  prevent  the  first  Eu- 
ropean who  wandered  into  the  region  in  1642  from  climb- 
ing Mount  Washington.  He  found  many  crystals,  and 
for  a  long  time  the  mountains  were  called  the  "  Crystal 
Hills."  The  present  name  refers  to  the  snow  which 
whitens  the  bare  higher  summits  for  so  much  of  the 
year. 

The  first  settler  among  the  mountains  was  a  hunter 
who  established  himself  there  in  1792.  About  ten 
years  later  a  small  tavern  was  built,  but  there  were 
no  hotels  for  another  half  century.  After  that  the 
region  rapidly  developed  as  a  summer  resort  and  be- 
came known  as  "The  Switzerland  of  America."  An- 
other descriptive  title  is  "The  Roof  of  New  England." 

Scattered  through  the  mountains  are  big  palatial 
hotels,  and  towns  and  villages  almost  wholly  devoted 
to  caring  for  warm-weather  visitors.  One  of  these 
villages  is  Bethlehem,  which  is  higher  up  and  has  more 


The   White   Mountains 


259 


hotels  than  any  other  \'illage  in  New  England.  At  the 
beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century  it  consisted  of  a 
few  scattered  log  cabins,  and  the  settlers'  fields  were 
full  of  dead  girdled  trees.  It  lies  on  a  breezy  upland 
slope  with  a  vast  panorama  of  mountain  ranges  rim- 
ming most  of  the  horizon.  The  permanent  inhabitants 
are  only  about  one  thousand,  but  the  summer  popu- 
lation is  a  multitude. 

The  railroads  approach  the  mountains  from  differ- 
ent directions,  and  one  passes  right  through  the  midst 


i'miKoiiia  \olch 


of  the  group  by  way  of  a  deep  valley  called  the  Craw- 
ford Notch.  A  strange  catastrophe  occurred  in  this 
notch  in  1826.     An  occasional  life  has  been  lost  in 


26o 


New   England 


winter  storms,  and  there  have  been  some  serious  acci- 
dents to  travellers  on  the  roads,  but  no  other  tragedy 


Beside  the  stream  in  Pinkliam  Notch 


has  the  interest  of  this  one  in  the  heart  of  the  Crawford 
Notch.  A  rustic  inn  had  been  built  there,  and  in  it 
dwelt  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Willey,  their  five  children,  and  two 
hired  men.  At  dusk,  one  day  toward  the  end  of  August, 
a  storm  burst  on  the  mountains  and  raged  with  great 
fury  through  the  night.  Every  tiny  stream  became  a 
torrent,  and  the  valleys  were  flooded,  and  the  roads 
were  impassable. 
Two  days  later  a  traveller  succeeded  in  getting  to 


The  White   Mountains  261 

the  Willey  House,  which  he  found  standing  in  woful 
desolation.  An  avalanche  of  earth,  rocks,  and  trees 
had  descended  from  the  mountain  and  barely  missed 
carrying  the  house  away.  When  the  traveller  pushed 
open  the  door  a  dog  disputed  his  entrance  and  howled 
mournfully.  The  lonely  cabin  had  no  other  inmates. 
Beside  the  beds  lay  the  clothing  of  the  members  of  the 
household,  indicating  a  hasty  and  frightened  flight. 
Apparently  they  had  become  aware  of  the  danger  that 
threatened  and  run  forth  seeking  safety  only  to  be 
overwhelmed.  If  they  had  remained  in  the  house,  they 
would  not  have  been  harmed,  for  the  avalanche  divided 
a  little  back  of  the  dwelling  and  rushed  by  on  either 
side,  leaving  the  frail  structure  standing,  though  some 
of  the  debris  struck  it  with  sufficient  force  to  move  it 
slightly  from  its  foundations.  A  flock  of  sheep  that 
was  in  the  yard  in  front  of  the  house  suffered  no  harm, 
but  the  barn  was  crushed  and  two  horses  in  it  were 
killed. 

The  bodies  of  all  the  members  of  the  household  ex- 
cept those  of  three  of  the  children  were  found  later. 
For  twenty-one  miles  down  the  valley  the  turnpike 
was  demolished,  and  more  than  a  score  of  bridges  were 
swept  away.  Some  of  the  meadows  were  buried  sev- 
eral feet  deep  with  earth  and  rocks,  and  there  were 
great  barricades  of  trees  that  had  been  torn  up  by  the 
roots. 

Thousands  of  people  visit  the  top  of  Mount  Wash- 
ington every  year.     This  monarch  of  the  New  Eng- 


262  New  England 

land  mountains  is  over  one  mile  high.  As  you  go  up  it 
the  trees  steadily  diminish  in  size,  and  at  the  height  of 
three  thousand  feet  they  are  not  half  as  large  as  those 
in  the  valley.  At  four  thousand  feet  they  are  mere 
shrubs,  scraggly,  stunted,  and  gray  with  age  and  shaggy 


AiounL  VVashingLon,  Lhe  loftiest  height  in  New  England 

moss.  At  last,  even  these  pinched  earth-hugging 
birches  and  spruces  find  the  soil  too  thin  and  the  war- 
fare with  the  elements  too  strenuous,  and  there  is 
nought  but  a  drear  waste  of  shattered,  lichened  rocks, 
with  intervals  of  coarse  grass,  moss,  diminutive  blue- 
berry bushes,  and  a  few  dainty  blossoms.  The  rock 
fragments  in  this  bhghtcd  upper  region  look  as  if  they 
had  lain  there  unchanged  for  ages. 


The  White   Mountains  263 

There  is  a  good  road  and  a  bridle-path  to  the  sum- 
mit, but  the  chmb  is  long  and  hard,  and  most  people 
prefer  to  ride  up  on  a  queer  little  railway.  The  rail- 
way is  in  part  laid  at  the  surface  of  the  ground,  and 
in  part  on  trestle-work  which  often  passes  over  deep 
hollows.  There  are  cogwheels  under  the  engine  which 
fit  a  hea\'y  cogged  rail  that  is  halfway  between  the 
other  two.  This  enables  the  train  to  ascend  and  de- 
scend safely  the  steepest  parts  of  the  mountain.  The 
machinery  is  so  made  that  no  matter  what  happens  to 
it  the  train  can  be  brought  to  a  prompt  stop,  and  not 
run  away  down  the  mountain.  The  railway  is  three 
miles  long.  When  its  inventor  applied  to  the  legis- 
lature for  a  charter,  the  scheme  seemed  so  impossible 
that  a  member  sarcastically  moved  to  give  the  appli- 
cant leave  to  build  a  railway  to  the  moon.  It  was 
completed  in  1869. 

A  bridle-path  was  cut  to  the  top  in  1819,  and  the 
next  year  some  gentlemen  stayed  on  the  summit 
overnight  and  named  the  different  peaks  of  what  has 
since  been  known  as  the  Presidential  Range.  The 
names  are  those  of  the  early  presidents,  Washington, 
Adams,  Jefferson,  Madison,  Monroe,  and  Jackson. 

More  and  more  visitors  came  to  the  mountains,  and 
in  1853  a  house  was  erected  on  the  summit  of  Mount 
Washington.  All  the  buildings  there  have  to  be  made 
secure  by  anchoring  with  numerous  cables  and  rods. 
They  could  not  otherwise  withstand  the  fierce  gales, 
for  on  this  bleak  height  the  wind  has  registered  the 


264 


New   England 


amazing  velocity  of  one  hundred  and  eighty  miles  an 
hour. 

Clouds  are  apt  to  hover  about  the  summit,  and  on 
the  journey  up  or  down  you  are  likely  to  pass  through 


The  Presidential  Range,  so  called  IxTausc  iis  peaks  hear  the 
names  of  six  early  Presidents  of  the  United  States 

their  gray  mists.  The  view  from  the  top  is  very  wide- 
reaching  on  a  clear  day,  and  Mount  Katahdin  in  Maine 
can  be  seen  off  on  the  northeastern  horizon  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  miles  away. 

Every  three  hundred  feet  above  the  sea  level  brings 
the  temperature  down  about  one  degree,  which  means 
a  difference  of  twenty  degrees  in  the  case  of  the  sum- 
mit of  Mount  Washington.  The  air  there  is  nearly 
always  cool,  and  in  winter  the  mercury  has  been  known 
to  go  down  to  fifty  degrees  below  zero. 


The   White   Mountains 


265 


Aside  from  the  mountains  themselves  and  their  wild 
notches  there  are  several  attractions,  such  as  Echo 
Lake,  the  Old  Man  of  the  Mountain,  and  the  Flume, 
which  every  visitor  wishes  to  see. 

Echo  Lake  in  the  Franconia  Notch  is  a  dainty  body 
of  water  with  steep  wooded  heights  rising  from  its  bor- 
ders. If  you  stand  on  the  shore  opposite  the  bluffs, 
your  voice  or  the  report  of  a  pistol  or  the  notes  of  a 
bugle  come  back  with  startling  clearness  on  a  quiet  day. 


ImIk)  l.akr 


Only  a  mile  away  is  Profile  Lake,  from  which  the 
woods  sweep  up  a  precipitous  slope  for  more  than  a 


266 


New  England 


thousand  feet,  and  you  see  near  the  summit  the  grim 
stone  features  of  the  Old  Man  outjutting  from  a  tre- 
mendous cliff.  The  face  itself  is  forty  feet  in  length, 
but   the  beholder  does  not   realize  its  great  size  at 

such  a  distance, 
and  marvels 
most  that  it  is 
so  strikingly 
human.  The 
Indians  were 
its  original  dis- 
coverers, and 
you  wonder 
what  impres- 
sion was  made 
on  them  by 
that  strange 
face  gazing 
forth  from  the 
brow  of  the 
wilderness 
mountain. 

The  Flume  is  an  almost  straight  cleft  nine  hundred 
feet  long  and  sixty  or  more  deep.  Its  perpendicular 
walls  are  only  a  few  feet  apart,  and  a  little  stream 
rushes  down  the  shadowy  depths  with  much  noise  and 
turmoil.  The  stream  enters  the  upper  end  of  the 
Flume  by  a  leap  from  the  brow  of  a  precipice  in  a 
graceful  cascade. 


Old  Mail  of  Ihe  Mountain 


The  White   Mountains 


267 


Formerly  there  was  an  enormous  suspended  boulder 
in  the  Flume,  so  firmly  wedged  between  the  cliffs  that 


A  camping  ouLlil 

it  seemed  destined  to  stay  there  until  doomsday.  But 
in  1883  a  violent  thunderstorm  started  a  landslide  up 
beyond  the  cleft,  and  all  the  rubbish  came  down 
through  and  carried  along  the  boulder.  The  mass  of 
rocks  and  earth  and  trees  was  deposited  some  distance 
below.  Whether  the  boulder  was  broken  into  frag- 
ments, or  whether  it  lies  buried  entire  in  the  debris, 
no  one  knows. 

There  are  lookout  places  on  the  mountains  where 
men  are  watching  for  fires  all  the  summer  through. 
The  men  have  telescopes,  and  their  lookouts  are  con- 
nected with  the  villages  by  telephone.     As  soon  as  they 


268 


New    England 


see  the  smoke  of  a  fire  starting  they  telephone  down, 
and  men  are  soon  on  the  spot  putting  it  out. 

Soon  after  the  beginning  of  the  present  century 
''Old  Man  Thompson,"  a  famous  White  Mountain 
hunter,  died  at  the  age  of  ninety-five.  He  came  to  the 
mountains  in  his  youth  when  some  of  the  people  were 


/,/,»/; fo.,  .V.  y. 


Morning  mists  at  Dixville  Notch 


still  living  in  log  houses.  About  1870  he  killed  the. 
last  wolf  ever  seen  in  the  region.  A  man  had  drawn  a 
dead  ox  out  in  his  pasture,  and  Old  Man  Thompson 
saw  the  wolf  eating  the  ox.  He  set  a  trap,  and  caught 
the  creature.  He  hunted  foxes,  coons,  mink,  and 
marten  for  their  furs.  Occasionally  he  would  get  an 
otter,  and  he  secured  many  a  deer  and  bear. 

Bears  are  shot  and  trapped  in  the  mountains  even 


The   White   Mountains  269 

yet.  The  trapper  finds  two  old  logs  about  three  feet 
apart.  Then  he  puts  lighter  logs  on  top  to  make  a 
kind  of  fence,  and  fastens  them  in  place  with  stakes 
and  wire.  He  closes  one  end  of  the  passage,  puts  some 
scraps  of  meat  or  fish  inside  at  the  closed  end,  and  in 
front  of  this  bait  sets  a  great  jagged- jawed  steel  trap. 
The  trap  is  not  hitched.  If  it  were,  and  a  bear  got  into 
it,  he  would  jerk  his  foot  out  at  his  first  jump.  The 
trap  itself  weighs  thirty  pounds,  and  has  a  stout  chain 
five  feet  long  hitched  to  it,  and  on  the  end  of  that  is 
a  three-clawed  grapple  which  drags  along  and  catches 
on  roots  and  bushes.  The  bear  is  not  likely  to  go  very 
far  before  the 'grapple  compels  him  to  stop,  and  there 
the  trapper  finds  him. 

Bears  usually  keep  away  from  villages  and  farms ; 
and,  as  they  do  most  of  their  roving  at  night,  people 
seldom  see  them.  In  the  winter  they  stay  in  some 
snug  hiding-place  asleep,  and  do  not  come  out  until 
the  snow  melts  off.  They  are  usually  fat  then,  but  food 
is  scarce  and  they  become  very  lean  long  before  the 
berries  are  ripe  in  the  summer.  Meanwhile  they  eat 
roots,  and  dig  up  wild  turnips,  and  they  tear  rotten 
logs  and  stumps  to  pieces  to  get  at  the  big  ants  which 
are  inside.  If  they  can  make  their  way  into  a  bee 
tree,  they  steal  the  honey,  and  they  are  always  on  the 
lookout  for  yellow  wasp  nests.  In  the  fall  the  bears 
paw  over  the  leaves  after  beech-nuts.  They  climb  apple 
trees  to  get  the  fruit,  and  often  damage  them  badly  pull- 
ing in  the  ends  of  the  hmbs  and  clawing  off  the  apples. 


Falls  at  North  Woodstock 
New   Hampshire   Places  and   Famous   People 

THOUSANDS  of  farmers  in  New  England  add  to 
their  income  by  taking  boarders  who  come  from 
the  cities,  when  the  summer  heat  and  dust  are  most 
trying,  to  find  rest  and  recreation  amid  the  country 

greenery.     It  is  a  grateful  change  to  people  who  spend 

270 


New  Hampshire  Places  and   People      271 

most  of  the  year  in  offices,  stores,  and  manufactories. 
They  resort  in  multitudes  to  New  England's  wooded 
mountains  and  silvery  lakes,  its  winding  rivers  with 
their  falls  and  rapids,  its  pleasant  valleys,  and  its 
rocky  seacoast.  Some  stay  for  only  a  few  days,  but 
others  remain  for  weeks  or  months. 

It  is  estimated  that  the  summer  people  leave  over 
five  million  dollars  a  year  in  the  single  state  of  New 
Hampshire.  Much  of  this  is  spent  in  the  White 
Mountains,  but  there  are  many  other  favorite  resorts 


■■••J*--  ■  r  .  '  "3*-^ 

Lake  Winnepesaukee 

in  the  state,  especially  on  the  shores  of  the  beautiful 
lakes,  such  as  Sunapee  and  Winnepesaukee.     These 


272  New   England 

names  were  bestowed  by  the  Indians.  The  latter 
means  "The  Smiles  of  the  Great  Spirit."  Winne- 
pesaukee  is  a  very  irregular  lake  with  a  breadth  of  from 
one  to  twelve  miles  and  a  length  of  twenty.  It  has 
three  hundred  and  sixty  islands,  some  only  a  few 
square  yards  in  extent,  and  others  having  an  area  of 
many  acres. 

Large  numbers  of  people  are  attracted  to  the  beaches 
of  the  state's  short  shore-line,  or  to  the  famous  Isles  of 
Shoals,  which  are  among  the  most  frequented  of  all 
the  New  England  islands.     Lowell  describes  them  as 

"  A  heap  of  bare  and  splintery  crags. 
Tumbled  about  by  lightning  and  frost. 
With  rifts  and  chasms,  and  storm-bleached  jags, 
That  wait  and  growl  for  a  ship  to  be  lost." 

They  are  about  three  leagues  off  the  New  Hampshire 
coast.  The  largest  of  the  nine  islands  is  a  mile  in 
length  and  half  a  mile  across.  On  one  of  them  enough 
ground  free  from  boulders  is  found  for  a  few  acres 
of  mowing,  and  on  another  for  some  garden  plots. 
They  are  wholly  treeless,  and  support  nothing  of 
larger  growth  than  huckleberry  and  bayberry  bushes, 
woodbines,  and  wild  roses. 

The  isles  were  frequently  visited  by  European  fishing 
boats  long  before  New  England  was  settled,  and  people 
began  to  establish  their  homes  on  them  almost  as  soon  as 
on  the  neighboring  mainland.  There  was  a  rapid  in- 
crease of  population  and  wealth,  and  the  isles  had  their 


New   Hampshire   Places  and   People      273 

meeting-house  and  court-house,  and  a  seminary  of  such 
repute  that  gentlemen's  sons  came  from  the  mainland 
to  it  for  literary  instruction.  Swine  were  numerous, 
and  what  is  now  called  Appledore  was  then  known  as 
Hog  Island.  There  was  a  tavern  on  Smutty  Nose. 
Hog  Island  had  a  good  spring  of  water  on  it,  and  a 
considerable  village  grew  up  on  its  sheltered  southerly 
slope. 

Trade,  commerce,  and  fishing  were  actively  engaged 
in,  and  the  little  harbor  was  filled  with  shallops  and 
pinnaces.  The  scene  presented  at  the  isles  then  must 
have  been  a  picturesque  one.  On  windless  summer 
days  the  great  hulking  red-capped  fishermen  lounged 
about  the  rocks  smoking  their  Brazil  tobacco  and  wait- 
ing for  a  breeze,  the  fishwives  chattered  at  their  out- 
door net-mending,  and  the  ragged  children  played 
boisterous  games  in  the  narrow  village  lanes.  By  the 
shores  were  many  long  platforms  spread  with  the  dry- 
ing fish,  and  wisps  of  smoke  drifted  upward  from  cot- 
tage chimneys.  Roundabout  was  the  wide  sea,  glisten- 
ing in  the  sunlight,  and  westward  were  the  dim  blue 
hills  of  the  mainland. 

When  the  wind  began  to  blow,  the  men  sailed  away 
in  their  little  vessels,  but  with  the  approach  of  twilight 
the  fishing  boats,  one  by  one,  came  winging  home. 

By  1700  the  isles  began  to  lose  their  population  and 
prosperity,  and  of  late  years  they  have  not  had  a  single 
permanent  family  on  them  except  that  of  the  light- 
house keeper.     But  their  healthfulness  and  the  equable 


274  New   England 

coolness  of   their  summer   climate  bring   to   them  a 
swarm  of  vacation  visitors  every  year. 

One  of  the  most  charming  and  unusual  of    New 
Hampshire   towns  is   Cornish   on   the   banks   of    the 


Boat  landing,  Lake  Sunapee 

Connecticut.  It  is  a  place  of  wonderful  estates  that 
have  been  developed  by  a  colony  of  artists,  authors, 
and  other  professional  men.  The  first  man  of  fame  to 
come  was  Augustus  St.  Gaudens,  the  greatest  of  Ameri- 
can sculptors.  He  remodelled  an  old  tavern  into  a 
beautiful  dwelling.  Later  comers  in  some  instances 
also  made  over  local  houses  bought  of  the  country  folk, 
and  in  other  instances  they  built  new  homes  of  mar- 
vellous architectural  attractiveness,  and  they  sur- 
rounded their  residences  with  all  the  enchantment  that 


New   Hampshire   Places  and   People      275 

landscape-gardening  and  unspoiled  woodland  per- 
mitted. Their  homes  are  widely  scattered  about  the 
neighborhood  of  Blow-me-down  Brook  in  a  tumbled 
region  of  steep  hills  and  deep  valleys,  with  the  giant 
form  of  Mount  Ascutney  looming  skyward  not  far 
away  to  the  south.  It  is  a  secluded  spot  several  miles 
distant  from  the  nearest  railroad  station,  which  is 
at  Windsor  across  the  river. 

Formerly  Portsmouth,  at  the  outlet  of  the  Piscataqua, 
was  the  largest  place  in  New  Hampshire,  but  it  has 
failed  to  keep  pace  with  the  manufacturing  cities  which 


A  Portsnmuth  walcr.-iik' 

use  water-power.  Thomas  Bailey  Aldrich,  the  poet,  was 
born  in  Portsmouth,  and  it  was  there  he  had  the  youth- 
ful experiences  that  he  relates  in  his  delightful  "Story 
of  a  Bad  Boy."  The  simple  old  house  in  which  he 
lived  has  been  preserved  as  a  memorial. 


2/6 


New   England 


Another  famous  man  of  remarkable  originality  who 
started  life  in  New  Hampshire  was  the  editor,  Horace 
Greeley.  He  was  born  in  1811  in  a  humble  farm-house 
at  i\mherst  a  few  miles  north  of  Nashua.  His  mother 
was  strong  and  active.  She  did  both  housework  and 
fieldwork.  She  hoed  in  the  garden,  could  outrake  any 
man  in  town,  and  could  load  hay  as  fast  and  as  well  as 
her   husband.      The  farmers  had  to  contend  against 

hills,  rocks, 
sand,  marshes, 
and  long  win- 
ters. It  gave 
a  stranger  a 
new  idea  of 
liard  work  to 
see  an  ox-team 
ploughing  the 
sides  of  those 
steep  stony 
The  little  boy  driver  leaped  along  from  sod  to 


Birthplace  of  Horace  Greeley 


hills. 


sod,  the  man  wrenched  the  plough  around  the  rocks, 
and  boy  and  man  every  now  and  then  united  in  a  yell 
for  the  panting  beasts  to  stop  when  the  plough  was 
caught  by  a  hidden  rock  too  large  for  it  to  overturn. 
Yet  the  town  yielded  fair  returns  of  rye,  oats,  potatoes, 
corn,  and  young  men.  It  was  the  last  that  formed  the 
chief  article  of  export. 

Horace's  name  was  commonly  shortened  to  "Hod" 
in  his  boyhood.     He  learned  to  read  about  as  soon  as 


New   Hampshire   Places  and   People      277 

he  learned  to  talk,  and  at  the  age  of  four  could  read 
any  book  in  whatever  position  it  might  be  placed  — 
right   side  up,   upside  down,   or  sidewise.     To    gain 


Mount  Chocorua 


knowledge  was  his  delight  in  school  or  wherever  he 
was.  Even  when  hoeing  corn  or  chopping  at  the 
woodpile,  if  he  had  a  companion,  he  was  perpetually 
talking  about  his  lessons,  asking  questions,  and  nar- 
rating what  he  had  read. 

But  of  all  New  Hampshire's  sons  the  greatest  repu- 
tation was  won  by  Daniel  Webster,  who  was  born  in 
1782  at  the  Uttle  town  of  Salisbury  about  twenty  miles 


278 


New   England 


north  of  Concord.  He  was  the  ninth  in  a  family  of 
ten  children.  There  were  five  boys,  and  it  was  natu- 
rally expected  that  they  would  work  on  the  farm,  but 
Daniel  was  the  youngest  and  weakest  of  them,  and 
was  not  required  to  do  very  much.  So  he  had  plenty 
of  time  for  reading,  fishing,  and  roaming  about. 

At  a  very  early  age  he  was 
able  to  read  with  such  fluency 
and  charm  that  the  neighbors 
would  often  stop  at  the  farm- 
house and  ask  "Webster's  boy" 
to  read  to  them.  His  selections 
were  always  from  the  Bible,  and 
he  read  with  a  dramatic  power 
that  held  his  hearers  spellbound. 
To  prepare  for  college  he  went 
to  Exeter  Academy.  He  trav- 
elled thither,  a  distance  of  fifty 
miles,  "riding  double"  behind 
his  father  in  clothes  that  he  had  outgrown,  and  with 
rustic  manners  which  caused  him  much  mortification 
at  the  school.  He  graduated  at  Dartmouth  in  1801, 
and  soon  began  to  practise  law  in  the  rural  courts. 
Within  a  few  years  he  moved  to  Portsmouth,  the 
chief  commercial  place  in  the  state.  He  was  success- 
ful there  as  a  lawyer  and  a  politician,  but  at  the  end 
of  ten  years,  when  he  left  it  to  make  his  home  in 
Boston,  his  unpaid  debts  amounted  to  thousands  of 
dollars. 


Daniel  Webster 


New   Hampshire   Places   and   People      279 

In  a  short  time  he  was  recognized  as  one  of  Boston's 
leading  lawyers,  and  was  making  twenty  thousand 
dollars  a  year.  Yet  he  had  a  spendthrift  habit  which 
resulted  in  his  seldom  being  free  from  an  oppressive 
burden  of  debt  his  Hfe  through.  He  had  few  rivals  in 
public  debate  and  oratory,  and  his  unusual  appearance 
made  him  a  marked  man  wherever  he  appeared. 

New  Hampshire  soil,  except  in  the  alluvial  valleys, 
is  better  adapted  to  pasturage  than  culture,  and  the 
upland  farm  towns  have  only  a  few  hundred  inhabit- 
ants in  each.  Between  1850  and  1900  the  amount  of 
improved  land  decreased  one  half,  showing  that  a  very 
large  amount  formerly  cultivated  had  gone  back  to 
pasturage  and  woodland.  However,  the  state  has  its 
fertile  sections,  where  many  fine  dairy  farms  are  found. 

The  three  largest  cities  are  on  the  IMerrimack.  Of 
these  Concord  owes  its  growth  in  part  to  being  the 
state  capital,  but  the  growth  of  the  other  two,  Man- 
chester and  Nashua,  can  be  credited  almost  wholly  to 
their  manufacturing. 

One  of  the  best-known  products  of  Concord  is  wagons. 
Here,  too,  are  important  granite  quarries,  but  New 
Hampshire  gets  its  title  of  the  "Granite  State,"  not 
from  the  amount  of  that  stone  quarried,  but  from  the 
amount  that  exists  within  its  boundaries.  Some  of  its 
mountains,  such  as  Mount  Washington,  consist  al- 
most entirely  of  granite. 

Mica  is  another  product  of  the  state,  and  in  Grafton 
County  are  the  leading  mica  mines  of  the  United  States. 


28o 


New   England 


Cotton  goods  and  shoes  each  contributes  about  one- 
fourth  of  the  total  value  of  New  Hampshire's  manu- 
factured products.    At  Manchester  is  the  largest  cotton 


Amoskcae  tails  at  ManchcsU-r 


mill  in  the  world.  It  gets  power  from  the  Amoskeag 
Falls,  which  have  a  drop  of  fifty-five  feet.  The  falls 
have  an  Indian  name  which  means  fishing-place.  This 
was  a  great  resort  of  the  savages,  and  the  fisheries  here 
were  of  important  value  to  the  early  settlers.  The 
shad  passing  up  the  falls  in  the  spring  are  said  to 
have  been  so  numerous  that  a  man  could  not  put 
his  hand  into  the  water  without  touching  some  of 
them. 


New   Hampshire   Places   and   People      281 

Many  mills  have  been  built  on  the  tributaries  of 
the  larger  streams,  and  the  railways  have  either  pre- 
ceded or  followed  them,  for  valleys  are  the  natural 
thoroughfares  for  the  railways.  As  a  consequence  the 
most  populous  villages  are  in  these  valleys.  Some  of 
the  early  mill  villages  grew  up  in  situations  that  the 
railroads  could  not  profitably  reach,  and  in  that  case 
both   the   mills  and   the   villages   have   usuallv  been 


Livernn)re  Falls  on  the  Merrimack  River 


abandoned.  Economical  transportation  is  just  as 
necessary  for  profitable  manufacturing  as  cheap 
power. 


Lake  Memphremagog 
Early   Vermont  and  the  Green   Mountain  Boys 

IN  the  colonial  wars  the  predatory  parties  which 
moved  back  and  forth  between  Canada  and  the 
frontier  settlements  of  New  England  followed  the  water- 
ways. These  were  navigable  almost  to  their  sources  by 
the  light  birch  canoes  of  the  Indians;   and  in  winter, 


Early  Vermont  283 

when  they  were  frozen,  they  still  offered  the  routes 
of  easiest  grade  for  snowshoes  and  sledges.  At  night 
the  northern  war  parties  camped  with  no  shelter  but 
the  sky  and  the  lofty  arches  of  the  forest,  and  as  they 
travelled  they  depended  for  food  largely  on  the  fish 
they  could  catch,  and  the  deer  and  other  creatures 
they  could  shoot. 

The  route  oftenest  used  was  by  way  of  Lake 
Champlain,  and  up  Otter  Creek,  then  down  White 
River  and  the  Connecticut.  This  was  commonly 
known  as  "The  Indian  Road,"  and  for  nearly  the 
whole  distance  it  was  on  the  borders  of  or  in 
Vermont. 

The  raids  from  Canada  led  to  the  establishment  of 
Vermont's  first  settlement,  Fort  Dummer,  in  the 
southern  part  of  what  is  now  Brattleboro.  Work  was 
begun  on  the  fort  in  February,  1724.  The  task  was 
undertaken  by  Massachusetts,  and  the  fort  was  named 
in  honor  of  its  lieutenant-governor.  By  early  sum- 
mer it  was  ready  for  occupancy.  It  was  built  of  hewn 
logs  laid  horizontally  to  form  a  square  one  hundred 
and  eighty  feet  on  a  side,  and  there  was  an  outer  de- 
fence consisting  of  a  stockade  of  square  timber  twelve 
feet  in  length  set  upright  in  the  ground.  Habitations 
for  the  garrison  were  built  against  the  walls  in  the  inner 
enclosure.  The  fort  was  furnished  with  four  pieces  of 
hght  ordnance  that,  if  the  need  arose,  could  be  charged 
with  old  nails  or  stones.  There  was  also  a  "Great 
Gun,"  used   only   as   a   signal.     Its   sudden   thunder 


284 


New   England 


rolling   through  leagues   of  forest  summoned  aid  or 
announced  good  tidings. 

The  fort  had  a  garrison  of  forty  English  and  friendly 
Indians.  Some  of  them  would  climb  the  neighboring 
mountains  and  spend  long  winter  nights  on  the  sum- 
mits looking  in  the  morning  and  evening  for  smoke 
from  enemy  campfires.  Others  went  scouting  in  the 
wilderness  that  lay  to  the  northward  to  discover  any 
raiding  parties  that  might  be  coming  toward  the  fron- 
tier towns.  These  rangers  were  mainly  directed  by 
Captain  Josiah  Kellogg,  who  at  the  age  of  fourteen 


The  Coiincclicul  Rixcr  ami  Mount  Ascutney 

had  been  captured  by  the  Indians  and  carried  off  to 
Canada.     There  he  lived  the  life  of  a  savage  among 


Early  Vermont  285 

his  captors  for  ten  years.  He  acquired  their  skill  in 
hunting  and  trapping,  and  learned  to  speak  their 
language.  After  his  return  to  civilization  he  was  of 
great  value  as  interpreter  in  dealing  with  the  Indians, 
and  until  he  died  in  1757  was  constantly  employed  in 
public  service  on  the  frontiers. 

Only  a  few  months  after  the  fort's  completion  it 
was  attacked  by  the  Indians,  and  four  or  live  of  its 
occupants  were  killed  or  wounded.  A  trading  house 
was  presently  established  at  the  fort,  and  the  Indians 
flocked  to  it  with  their  moose-skins  and  other  furs. 

Several  blockhouses  were  built  at  points  farther  up 
the  river.  These  were  of  hewn  logs  with  a  projecting 
upper  stor}'-,  and  loopholes  through  which  muskets 
could  be  fired. 

As  soon  as  the  English  came  into  possession  of 
Canada  in  1759  and  the  invasions  ceased,  settlers  be- 
gan to  drift  into  the  southern  part  of  Vermont  and 
up  the  Connecticut  Valley.  In  a  short  time  Benning- 
ton had  its  hamlet  in  which  the  principal  building  was 
the  Green  Mountain  Tavern,  with  a  stuffed  catamount 
for  a  sign.  Brattleboro  boasted  the  only  store  in  the 
province,  Westminster  had  a  courthouse  and  jail,  and 
at  Vergennes  on  Otter  Creek,  where  the  beavers  had 
scarcely  quit  building  their  dams,  were  a  mill  and 
half  a  dozen  cabins. 

Vermont's  early  settlers  were  very  largely  from 
Connecticut,  and  when  it  became  a  state  in  1777 
it    assumed    the    name    of    New    Connecticut,    but 


286 


New   England 


this  was  dropped  for  its  present  name  a  few  months 
later. 

Within  a  short  time  after  the  inflow  of  settlers  had 
begun,  New  York  and  New  Hampshire  both  laid  claim 
to  the  whole  region,  and  there  ensued  much  hostility 
between  these  colonies.  Both  made  grants  of  land 
in  the  disputed  territory,  and  when  surveyors  under- 


Summer  work  on  a  Vermont  farm 


took  to  run  the  lines  of  the  New  York  grants  across 
lands  already  granted  by  New  Hampshire,  they  were 
compelled  to  desist.  Sheriffs  were  resisted,  and  some- 
times tied  to  trees  and  "severely  chastised  with  twigs 
of  the  wilderness"  by  the  settlers,  who  organized  under 
Ethan  Allen  of  Bennington  and  adopted  the  name  of 
Green  Mountain  Boys. 
Allen  was  from  Connecticut,  where  he  was  born  at 


Early  Vermont  287 

Litchfield  in   1737.     He  was  a  stalwart,  rough-man- 
nered backwoodsman,  brave,  and  rudely  eloquent,  and 


Picturesque  falls  at  Boltonville 

a  natural  leader  of  men.  When  the  New  Yorkers 
made  settlements  on  the  western  borders  of  the  prov- 
ince, he  and  his  Green  Mountain  Boys  drove  them 
away  and  burned  their  log-houses.  These  contests 
continued  for  many  years. 

Soon  after  the  battle  of  Lexington  the  leading  men 
of  Vermont  met  at  Bennington  in  the  Catamount 
Tavern  and  "attempted  to  explore  futurity."  They 
were   considering    the   possibility   of   capturing   Fort 


288  New   England 

Ticonderoga  near  the  southern  end  of  Lake  Champlain 
on  the  west  side  when  word  came  from  Connecticut 
that  men  were  being  recruited  both  there  and  in 
Massachusetts  to  help  in  such  an  enterprise.  Then 
the  conference  promptly  decided  to  act,  and  Ethan 
Allen  was  made  commander  of  the  expedition. 

Agents  were  sent  to  Albany  to  secure  provisions, 
guards  were  posted  on  the  roads  to  prevent  information 
of  the  patriots'  plans  reaching  the  British,  and  thirty 
men  went  to  the  lake  to  secure  boats.  The  boats  were 
to  be  taken  to  Shoreham,  which  was  opposite  the  fort 
on  the  Vermont  side  of  the  water,  and  there  the  troops 
were  to  assemble. 

A  messenger  was  sent  from  Bennington  to  Rutland, 
sixty  miles  distant,  to  rally  the  Green  Mountain  Boys. 
He  made  the  journey  on  foot  in  twenty-four  hours 
along  the  wretched  roads  of  the  new  country,  and  over 
rough  by-paths  only  marked  by  blazed  trees.  He  visited 
several  hamlets  and  summoned  their  fighting  men,  and 
here  and  there  spoke  with  an  isolated  settler,  who  at 
once  left  his  chopping  or  his  planting  to  take  his  gun. 

Meanwhile  a  spy  in  the  guise  of  a  simple  backwoods- 
man went  to  the  fort  and  gained  admission  on  the  pre- 
text that  he  wanted  to  get  shaved.  After  taking  note 
of  all  that  could  be  seen  in  the  place,  he  returned  to  his 
friends. 

On  the  evening  of  the  ninth  of  May,  the  force  had 
come  together  at  a  little  cove  about  two  miles  north  of 
Ticonderoga,  which  was  out  of  sight  across  the  lake. 


Early  Vermont  289 

There  were  sixteen  men  from  Connecticut,  forty  from 
Massachusetts,  and  nearly  one  hundred  and  fifty  Green 
Mountain  Boys.  They  waited  anxiously  for  the 
boats  which  were  to  come  from  the  southern  tip  of  the 
lake.  These  did  not  arrive  until  nearly  morning. 
They  included  scows,  skiffs,  dugouts,  and  yawls,  but 
not  enough  to  transport  half  the  force.  Allen  and 
eighty  others  embarked  and  soon  had  crossed  to  the 
other  shore.  The  boats  returned  for  the  rest  of  the 
men,  but  day  was  now  at  hand,  and  Allen  decided  to 
move  forward  without  further  delay.  He  was  com- 
pletely successful,  and  the  great  stronghold  with  all 
its  cannon  and  military  supplies  fell  into  the  hands  of 
the  Americans  and  cost  them  not  a  single  life. 

Two  years  later,  Burgoyne's  army  made  its  way 
down  from  Canada  and  retook  Ticonderoga.  When 
he  reached  the  southern  end  of  the  lake  in  midsummer 
the  settlers  of  western  Vermont  were  panic-stricken. 
They  feared  that  the  Indian  allies  of  the  expedition 
would  be  turned  loose  on  them,  and  all  the  farms  in 
the  exposed  district  were  deserted.  The  main  high- 
ways leading  southward  were  crowded  with  horsemen 
and  footmen,  and  wdth  lumbering  vehicles  carrjdng 
women,  children,  and  household  goods,  and  with 
straying  flocks  and  herds.  Mudholes  and  streams 
that  had  to  be  forded,  added  to  the  difficulties  of  the 
flight. 

A  call  was  sent  out  for  the  Vermont  militia  to  as- 
semble;   General  Stark    brought    troops    from   New 


290  New  England 

Hampshire,  and  other  troops  came  from  western 
Massachusetts. 

Provisions  were  becoming  scarce  in  Burgoyne's  army, 
and  he  determined  to  seize  for  his  use  the  stores  which 
the  Americans  had  collected  at  Bennington.  To  ac- 
complish this  he  despatched  a  Hessian  officer,  Colonel 
Baum,  with  a  force  of  three  hundred  unmounted 
dragoons,  who  were  to  provide  themselves  with  horses 
on  the  foray,  one  hundred  Indians,  and  four  hundred 
other  troops.  Lieutenant  Colonel  Breyman  with  six 
hundred  more  men  was  ready  to  support  Baum  if 
needed. 

The  latter  approached  Bennington  on  August  fif- 
teenth, but  encountered  the  Americans  in  such  force 
that  he  halted  his  troops  in  a  commanding  position  on 
a  hill  and  had  them  prepare  to  defend  themselves  there. 

That  night  rain  began  falling  and  increased  to  a 
downpour.  It  continued  to  fall  heavily  from  a  leaden 
sky  all  the  next  day,  but  in  spite  of  the  drenching  rain 
Baum  kept  his  men  busy  with  axes  and  spades  extend- 
ing and  strengthening  their  defences. 

On  the  following  morning  the  sun  rose  clear,  and  the 
raindrops  glittered  on  forest  and  meadows,  corn-fields, 
and  ripening  wheat,  and  filmy  vapors  rose  from  the 
pools  and  swollen  streams.  The  Americans  began 
early  in  the  day  to  assault  the  British  position  from  dif- 
ferent sides,  and  as  Stark  led  a  charge  he  shouted  to 
his  men,  ''Those  redcoats  are  ours  to-day,  or  Molly 
Stark  is  a  widow  !" 


Early   Vermont 


291 


Few  of  the  Yankee  farmers  wore  uniforms.  Most 
of  them  fought  in  their  shirtsleeves,  for  the  weather 
was  intensely  hot,  and  they  wore  no  badge  but  a  corn- 
husk  or  a  green  twig  in  the  hatband.  So  vigorous  was 
their  onset  that  the  Indians  stole  away  in  affright,  glad 
to  escape  with  their  own  scalps  and  without  plunder. 


BcnniniTlon  Ijaltk'tield 


For  two  hours  the  roar  of  conflict  was,  as  Stark  said, 
"like  a  continuous  clap  of  thunder."  The  enemy  had 
two  small  cannon,  but  presently  the  cannoneers  were 
shot  down,  the  guns  taken,  and  the  Yankees  swarmed 
over  the  breastworks.  Few  of  the  British  escaped 
death  or  capture. 

About  this  time  Breyman,  who  had  been  delayed 


292  New  England 

by  the  rain  and  the  wretched  condition  of  the  roads, 
arrived.  A  part  of  the  Americans  had  gone  to  the 
town  with  the  prisoners,  and  the  rest  were  scat- 
tered over  the  blood-stained  field  in  quest  of  spoil. 
For  a  little  while  it  looked  as  if  they  might  be  over- 
whelmed. The  small  force  that  at  first  was  able  to 
oppose  the  enemy  gradually  fell  back  until  the  militia 
rallied  in  sufficient  strength  to  make  a  stand.  A 
warmly  contested  engagement  continued  until  after 
sunset,  and  then  Breyman  hastity  retreated.  Stark 
pursued  him.  till  it  was  impossible  to  aim  a  gun  or  dis- 
tinguish friend  from  foe  in  the  gathering  gloom. 

Breyman  escaped  with  less  than  one  hundred  men. 
The  American  loss  in  killed  and  wounded  during  the 
day  was  seventy.  Two  of  the  cannon  captured  from 
the  Hessians  in  this  battle  are  to  be  seen  in  the  State 
House  at  Montpelier. 

Ethan  Allen  took  no  part  in  the  Bennington  fight. 
He  had  fallen  into  the  hands  of  the  British  the  same 
year  that  he  captured  Ticonderoga,  while  engaged  in 
an  expedition  that  invaded  Canada.  For  three  years 
he  was  held  a  prisoner,  most  of  the  time  in  England. 
Then  he  was  brought  back  and  exchanged.  On  his 
arrival  at  Bennington  the  people  thronged  into  the 
hamlet  to  greet  their  old  leader,  and  though  powder 
was  scarce  and  precious  a  cannon  was  charged,  and  it 
thundered  forth  a  salute  of  thirteen  guns  for  the  United 
States,  and  one  for  Vermont.  In  his  last  years  Allen 
lived  at  BurUngton,  where  he  died  in  1789. 


A  Lake  Champlain  l'cir\ -boal 
Lake  Champlain 

LAKE  Champlain  was  discovered  in  1609  b}'  the 
great  French  explorer  whose  name  it  bears.  He 
came  thither  from  the  little  settlement  of  Quebec, 
which  he  had  started  the  year  previous.  His  main 
object  was  to  find  a  way  to  China.     A  war  party  of  the 

293 


294 


New  England 


Canadian  Indians  went  with  him,  and  he  had  agreed 
to  help  them  in  attacking  their  enemies,  the  Iroquois. 
They  went  up  the  Richelieu  River  and  entered  the 
lake  about  the  middle  of  the  summer  in  twenty-four 
canoes.  There  were  two  other  Frenchmen  besides 
Champlain,  and  sixty  warriors.  Some  of  the  Indians 
spent  a  part  of  each  day  on  shore  hunting  in  order  to 
supply  the  expedition  with  food.  To  be  sure,  they  had 
a  provision  of  parched  maize  pounded  into  meal,  but 
they  saved  this  for  use  when  they  should  be  so  close 
to  the  enemy  that  hunting  would  be  impossible.     Late 


Sunset  near  Colchester  Point 

in  the  day  the  party  would  land,  draw  up  their  canoes, 
and  range  them  closely  side  by  side.  Rude,  bark- 
covered  sheds  were  then  made,  dry  wood  was  gathered 


Lake   Champlain  295 

for  the  fires,  and  trees  were  felled  with  which  to  form 
a  defensive  barricade  on  the  landward  side  of  the 
canoes  and  shelters. 

Champlain  went  on  amid  the  islands  and  broad 
reaches  of  water  to  the  more  open  portion  whence  he 
could  see  the  forested  ridges  of  the  Green  Mountains 
far  off  in  the  east,  while  on  the  western  horizon  loomed 
the  Adirondacks.  At  the  southern  end  of  the  lake 
the  expedition  encountered  a  party  of  Iroquois,  and 
fought  them  victoriously.  That  satisfied  Champlain's 
allies,  and  the  party  paddled  back  to  Canada. 

The  Indians'  name  for  the  Lake  meant  "The  Gate 
of  the  Country,"  and  this  very  well  described  it  in  the 
days  when  waterways  were  the  chief  thoroughfares. 
Canoes  could  go  from  it  to  the  St.  Lawrence,  or  south- 
erly to  either  the  Hudson  or  the  Connecticut,  with  only 
short  portages.  The  lake  is  one  hundred  and  twenty- 
six  miles  long.  It  varies  greatly  in  width.  There  are 
parts  so  narrow  you  can  almost  toss  a  stone  across 
them,  but  opposite  Burlington  is  a  stretch  of  water 
fully  ten  miles  broad. 

In  the  early  years  of  the  nineteenth  century  many 
of  the  great  pines  that  grew  in  Vermont's  virgin  forests 
were  felled,  and  made  into  rafts  that  voyaged  north- 
ward on  the  lake  and  down  the  Richelieu  River  to  the 
St.  Lawrence.  The  rafts  were  impelled  by  both  sail 
and  sweep.  The  crew  lived  on  board,  and  when  the 
south  wind  filled  the  sails  and  wafted  their  ponderous 
craft  past  the  ever- changing  shores  the  voyage  was  very 


296 


New   England 


pleasant.     But  calms  or  adverse  winds  meant  hard 
work  with  the  heavy  sweeps,  and  sometimes  a  storm 


Looking  across  the  lake  from  liurlinglon. 
are  the  Adirondacks 


111  ilie  distance 


was  encountered  which  threatened  to  break  the  raft 
in  pieces.  White-winged  sloops,  schooners,  and  square- 
sailed  scows  plied  to  and  fro  carrying  to  Canada 
cargoes  of  wheat  and  potash,  and  bringing  back  salt 
and  merchandise  from  beyond  the  sea. 

When  winter  converted  the  lake  into  a  plain  of  ice 
it  afforded  a  highway  for  traffic  on  runners,  and  many 
were  the  sled  loads  of  produce  that  were  taken  to  Mon- 
treal to  exchange  for  goods. 


Lake   Champlain 


297 


There  was  a  time  when  smugglers  engaged  in  their 
unlawful  traffic  on  the  lake.  They  sailed  by  night  in 
armed  bands  of  such  strength  that  the  revenue  officers 
seldom  ventured  to  molest  them.  One  notorious 
smuggling  vessel  was  called  the  Black  Snake.  This  was 
finally  seized  by  a  party  of  militia  where  she  had  crept 


W  inuuski  Gorge 


up  the  Winooski  a  few  miles  with  a  cargo  of  contra- 
band goods.  A  lieutenant  and  twelve  soldiers  were  de- 
tailed to  take  her  to  the  lake.  While  doing  so  they  were 
ambushed  by  the  smugglers,  who  fired  repeatedly  from 
the  willow-screened  bank  and  killed  three  of  them. 
The  remainder  of  the  mihtia  hurried  to  the  rescue  and 
captured   eight   of   the   smugglers.     Two   more   were 


298  New   England 

taken  later.  When  these  men  were  tried,  one  was 
sentenced  to  death,  three  to  ten  years'  imprisonment, 
after  first  standing  in  the  pillory,  and  two  were  to  re- 
ceive fifty  lashes  each. 

The  lake  continued  to  be  dotted  with  schooners  and 
sloops  until  after  1875.  Since  then  the  railroads  have 
taken  to  themselves  nearly  all  of  this  traffic. 

Here  and  there  on  the  long  narrow  lake  is  a  ferry. 
Most  of  the  ferry-boats  are  propelled  by  steam,  but 
formerly  they  were  flat-bottomed  scows  that  had  a 
mast  and  sail.  When  there  was  no  wind,  the  craft 
had  to  be  coaxed  along  with  oars  or  by  poling. 

The  ice  makes  an  excellent  bridge  all  through  the 
winter,  and.  at  that  time  the  lake  is  often  used  as  a 
race-course  for  horse  trots.  In  the  spring,  when  the 
ice  begins  to  melt,  people  continue  to  venture  on  it, 
and  they  do  not  always  stop  soon  enough.  Teams 
break  through,  and  occasionally  horses  are  drowned. 

The  most  important  lake  port  is  Vermont's  largest 
city,  Burlington.  In  the  early  days  the  goods  re- 
ceived here  by  steamers  and  by  canal  boats  and  other 
craft  from  the  Hudson  and  St.  Lawrence  valleys  were 
sent  to  the  towns  farther  east  in  great  eight-horse 
wagons.  But  now  railroads  pass  up  the  adjacent  river 
valleys  and  go  over  the  divide  to  the  valley  of  the 
Connecticut. 

Lumber  is  no  longer  sent  north  to  the  St.  I^awrence, 
for  Vermont  was  shorn  of  its  choicest  timber  many 
years  ago,  and  the  immense  forests  of  Canada  have 


Lake   Champlain  299 

become  its  chief  source  of  supply.  A  vast  amount  of 
lumber  reaches  Lake  Champlain  from  the  Canadian 
waterways,  and  Burlington  is  one  of  the  leading  lumber 
markets  of  the  country. 

In  this  part  of  the  lake  occurred  some  lively  naval 
fighting  in  the  War  of  181 2.     Once  during  that  war  the 


The  Winooski  \'; 


c  (li^lancc 


islet  Rock  Dundee  near  Burlington  was  mistaken  by 
the  British  for  a  United  States  vessel  and  was  peppered 
with  shot. 

The  first  steamer  used  on  the  lake  was  launched  at 
Burlington  in  1808,  only  a  year  after  Fulton's  suc- 
cessful experiment  on  the  Hudson.    This  vessel  as- 


lOO 


New   England 


tonished  the  spectators  by  its  wonderful  performance 
as  it  churned  its  way  through  the  waters  at  the  rate  of 
five  miles  an  hour.  The  steamers  now  on  the  lake  offer 
a  most  agreeable  way  of  journeying  up  and  down  it  and 


r^ 


Bow  Arrow  Point  between  Xorth  Hero  and  South  Hero  islands 


getting  acquainted  with  its  scenic  charms.  It  is  noted 
both  for  its  superb  views  and  its  rare  historic  associa- 
tions, and  has  long  been  a  favorite  summer  resort. 

One  of  the  famous  old-time  dwellers  in  the  vicinity 
of  Lake  Champlain  was  Horace  Greeley,  who  later 
became  a  renowned  figure  in  the  literary  and  political 
world  of  his  day.  It  was  in  182 1,  when  he  was  not 
quite  ten  years  old,  that  his  father  moved  from  New 
Hampshire  to  West  Haven  near  the  southern  tip  of 
the  lake.  The  home  of  the  Greeleys  was  three  miles 
from  its  borders,  and  the  lake  was  not  in  sight, 
but  they  could  see  the  morning  mists  that  rose  from 
its  surface,  and  the  hills  that  formed  its  opposite  shore. 
They  were  poor,  and  a  staple  article  of  food  with 
them  was  bean  porridge. 


Lake   Champlain  301 

Horace  had  a  passion  for  books,  and  in  the  evening 
he  spent  much  of  his  time  reading  by  the  hght  of  the 
pine-knots  blazing  on  the  hearth.  Candles  were  a 
luxury  too  expensive  to  be  indulged  in.  The  neighbors 
attributed  his  continual  reading  to  laziness,  and  proph- 
esied that  he  would  not  prosper. 

But  he  was  never  idle,  and  he  found  various  ways 
to  earn  money.  He  gathered  nuts  and  sold  them. 
He  would  hack  away  hours  at  a  time  at  a  pitch-pine 
stump,  tie  up  the  pieces  in  bundles,  and  carry  them  to 
the  store,  where  they  could  be  sold  for  kindling  wood. 
He  went  bee-hunting  and  got  honey  to  sell.  In  one 
way  or  another  he  always  contrived  to  have  a  little 
money,  and^  he  spent  most  of  it  for  books. 

When  he  was  fifteen  he  went  to  East  Poultney,  about 
a  dozen  miles  away,  and  became  an  apprentice  of  the 
publisher  of  a  country  newspaper  and  began  to  set 
type.  He  was  an  extremely  gawky-looking  youth, 
tall  and  slender,  with  very  light  tow  hair.  At  first 
the  other  apprentices  threw  type  at  him,  made  saucy 
remarks  to  him,  and  on  the  third  day  took  one  of 
the  large  balls  that  were  used  to  ink  the  type  and  made 
four  dabs  on  his  hair.  But  he  went  on  with  his  work  as 
if  nothing  had  happened.  After  that  the  boys  aban- 
doned their  pranks,  and  he  and  they  soon  became  good 
friends.  He  worked  at  his  type-setting  barefooted, 
and  with  his  shirtsleeves  tucked  up  above  his  elbows. 

There  was  a  lyceum  in  the  place  which  had  won  such 
a  fame  as  to  often  attract  to  its  meetings  people  from 


302 


New  England 


a  distance  of  ten  miles.  It  assembled  weekly  at  the 
little  brick  schoolhouse.  The  great  feature  of  the 
evening  was  a  debate  on  subjects  Uke :  "Is  novel- 
reading  injurious  to  society?  Is  marriage  conducive 
to  happiness  ?     Is  the  Union  likely  to  be  perpetuated  ? 

Was    Napoleon   Bonaparte  a 
great  man?" 

Horace  was  a  leading  mem- 
ber of  the  lyceum  during  the 
four  years  he  lived  in  the 
town,  and  as  a  debater  was 
unexcelled  in  the  range  and 
accuracy  of  his  knowledge 
and  in  the  clear  and  hvely 
presentation  of  his  arguments. 
Fairfield,  a  few  miles  east 
of  Lake  Champlain  near  St. 
Albans,  was  the  birthplace  of 
Chester  A.  Arthur.  He 
graduated  from  college  at  the  age  of  eighteen,  and 
three  years  later,  in  1851,  became  the  principal  of  the 
academy  at  North  Pownal  in  the  southwestern  corner 
of  the  state.  It  is  an  odd  fact  that  James  A.  Gar- 
field, whom  Arthur  succeeded  as  President  of  the  United 
States,  taught  a  writing  school  in  the  same  building 
not  long  afterward.  He  had  become  a  student  at  Wil- 
liams College  in  the  fall  of  1854,  and  at  the  end  of  the 
first  term  earned  money  by  teaching  writing  in  the  two 
months'  winter  vacation. 


Horace  Greeley,  the 
journalist 


An  earthenware  dasher  churn  oi  lung  ago 
Vermont   Industries 

THE  most  important  industry  of  the  "Green  Moun- 
tain State"  is  agriculture.  Many  of  the  largest  and 
best  farms  are  on  the  broad  lowlands  which  border 
Lake  Champlain  from  Canada  to  the  Hudson  Valley. 
Abundant  crops  of  hay  and  grain  are  raised,  and  apples 

303 


3^4 


New  England 


and  other  fruits  are  largely  grown.  The  situation  is 
particularly  favorable  for  fruit  because  the  prevailing 
westerly  winds  from  over  the  lake  tend  to  prevent 
early  frosts. 

Formerly  many  sheep  were  kept  and  much  wool 
was  sold  from  the  farms.  The  flocks  have  decreased 
four-fifths,  but  the  Merino  sheep  kept  at  present  pro- 
duce a  fleece 
that  weighs 
three  times  as 
much  as  that 
which  was 
sheared  from 
the  old-time 
sheep. 

The  cattle, 
too,  have  been 
greatly  i  m- 
proved.  Cows 
have  been  im- 
ported from  parts  of  Europe  where  they  have  long 
been  carefully  bred,  and  the  improvement  has  been 
continued  here  so  as  to  secure  animals  that  will  turn 
their  food  into  the  largest  possible  amount  of  rich 
milk.  In  no  other  state  is  so  high  an  average  yield 
of  butter  secured  from  the  cows  as  in  Vermont.  They 
can  be  pastured  to  advantage  on  the  rougher  farm 
land,  while  hay,  corn,  and  other  crops  can  be  raised 
on  the  better  land. 


In  a  farm-yard  corner 


Vermont    Industries  305 

Much  of  the  butter  is  made  at  creameries.  One  of 
the  greatest  of  New  England  creameries  is  at  St. 
Albans.  There  are  times  when  it  makes  more  than 
ten  tons  of  butter  in  a  day.  The  milk  for  the  butter 
is  gathered  from  six  hundred  dairies  and  carried  to 
various  centrally  located  separators.  At  these  the  milk 
is  poured  into  the  separating  machine  which  whirls 
it  very  rapidly.  The  watery  part  is  heavier  than  the 
cream,  and  crowds  to  the  outside  and  is  drawn  off 
through  a  tube  while  the  cream  passes  off  in  another 
tube.  This  process  does  not  deprive  the  milk  of  all 
its  food  value,  and  the  creamless  milk  is  taken  home 
by  the  farmers  for  their  pigs  and  calves. 

The  cream  is  sent  to  St.  Albans,  where  it  is  put  into 
a  big  churn,  and  by  means  of  machinery  is  shaken  and 
beaten  till  the  particles  of  fat  are  parted  from  the 
buttermilk.  Next  the  butter  is  transferred  to  a  ma- 
chine which  washes  it,  then  presses  out  most  of  the 
water  and  mixes  it  evenly  with  salt  to  flavor  it.  After 
that  it  is  molded  into  prints  or  packed  in  wooden  tubs. 

The  butter  of  the  state  was  in  good  repute  even  in 
the  primitive  days  of  the  earthen  milk-pan  and  slow 
laborious  dasher  churn,  and  when  a  summer  store  of  ice 
was  a  luxury  a  farmer  never  dreamed  of  possessing. 
Then  the  good,  bad,  and  indifferent  butter  of  a  whole 
township  went  as  barter  to  the  village  store,  where, 
with  little  assorting,  it  was  packed  in  firkins.  Later 
it  was  sent  to  the  city  markets  on  wagons  or  boats  in 
the  summer,  and  on  sleighs  in  the  winter,  along  with 


306  New  England 

cheese,  pork,  apples,  maple  sugar,  and  other  products 
of  farm  and  forest. 

Perhaps  no  manufactured  butter  or  cheese  quite 
equals  the  home-made  at  its  best,  but  the  average 
quality  of  the  latter  is  low,  and  the  price  it  will  bring 
is  similarly  low.  The  person  who  buys  creamery  but- 
ter or  factory  cheese  in  a  store  is  reasonably  certain 
that  it  has  been  made  by  improved  processes  and 
machinery  under  expert  care,  and  that  it  has  high 
excellence.  There  are  about  two  hundred  creameries 
and  seventy  cheese  factories  in  the  state,  and  upright 
dasher  churns  and  wooden  cheese  presses  are  no  longer 
common  on  the  farms. 

One  product  in  which  Vermont  is  preeminent  is 
maple  sugar.  It  produces  more  than  half  of  what  is 
made  in  the  United  States.  The  source  of  the  sugar 
is  the  sap  of  the  rock  maple  trees.  In  the  spring,  as 
soon  as  there  is  a  thaw  to  set  the  sap  moving  in  the 
trees,  the  gathering  begins.  The  season  usually  lasts 
from  early  March  through  April.  One,  two,  or  three 
holes  are  bored  near  the  base  of  each  rock  maple  that 
is  of  sufficient  size  in  the  tract  of  woodland  which  is  to 
be  covered  in  the  operations,  and  small  metal  spouts 
are  driven  into  them.  The  sap  starts  to  flow  almost 
instantly  if  the  weather  is  mild.  A  pail  is  hung  on 
each  spout  to  catch  the  sweet  dripping  liquid,  and  the 
pail  has  a  cover  to  keep  out  rain-water  and  dirt.  It 
is  large  enough  to  contain  all  of  one  day's  flow. 

One  or  two  men  with  a  span  of  horses  hitched  to  a. 


Vermont   Industries 


307 


sled,  on  which  is  a  barrel  or  a  tank,  go  about  among  the 
trees  to  gather  the  sap  and  draw  it  to  the  sugar-house. 
There  it  is  boiled  in  a  big  pan  set  over  a  fire  on  arches 
of  brick  or  stone.  When  the  sap  has  been  over  the  fire 
until  the  water  in  it  has  nearly  all  passed  away  in  steam. 


S^x^., 


'C^ 


A  sugar-lujuse  on  the  borders  of  a  grove  of  rock  maples 

it  is  strained  and  then  rapidly  boiled  until  it  becomes 
sugar.  This  final  process,  however,  is  often  omitted, 
and  much  of  the  maple  sweet  is  sold  in  the  form  of 
syrup  instead  of  sugar. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  sugar  season  the  snow  is 
still  deep  in  the  woods,  and  walking  is  difficult  unless 
there  is  a  stiff  crust.     The  larger  sugar  places  have  two 


3o8 


New   England 


or  three  thousand  trees  on  them.  "If  there  are  only  a 
few  hundred  trees,  the  sap  gathering  may  be  done  by  a 
man  who  goes  about  on  snowshoes  with  a  yoke  on  his 
shoulders,  from  either  end  of  which  is  suspended  a 
large  pail.  The  sap  will  not  flow  freely  unless  '  the 
nights  are  frosty  and  the  days  warm.  In  such  weather 
the  supply  of  sap  is  sometimes  so  copious  that  the  men 
have  to  work  day  and  night  to  prevent  loss. 

Years  ago  the  sap  spouts  were  made  of  wood.     Often 
they  were  of  elder  or  sumach,  which  have  a  pithy 


Gatherin<;  sap 


heart  that  can  be  pushed  out.     The  sap  was  caught 
in  troughs  roughly  hewn  out  of  blocks  of  wood,  or  in 


Vermont   Industries  309 

dishes  made  of  birch  bark.  Later  clumsy  wooden 
buckets  that  were  larger  at  the  bottom  than  at  the 
top  were  used.  The  gathering  was  done  with  oxen. 
When  the  sap  was  taken  to  the  sugar  camp,  it  was 
boiled  in  the  open  air  in  enormous  kettles  hung  over 
a  fire  built  on  the  ground.  The  fire  was  opposite  an 
open-fronted  shanty  that  sheltered  the  sugar  makers 
from  the  weather  during  their  daily  and  nightly  labor. 

The  sugaring-off  in  the  old  cauldron  was  greatly 
enjoyed  by  the  children.  With  a  spoon  or  a  wooden 
paddle  they  would  dip  up  some  of  the  thick  warm 
syrup  and  spread  it  to  cool  on  the  nearest  clean  snow. 
Its  gummy  sweetness,  when  it  was  eaten,  was  more 
delightful  than  any  candy  they  could  buy  in  the  shops. 

Many  old-time  families  saw  no  sweetening  from  one 
end  of  the  year  to  the  other  but  maple  sugar  and 
syrup,  and  the  honey  from  their  few  hives,  or  the 
uncertain  spoil  of  the  bee  hunter. 

Little  remains  in  Vermont  of  the  fine  forests  of  the 
pioneer  period.  Yet  in  the  northeastern  countries 
lumbering  is  a  leading  occupation  even  now.  There 
is  considerable  timber  also  in  the  rugged  ranges  of  the 
Green  Mountains,  which  extend  the  entire  length  of 
the  state.  The  loftiest  height  in  Vermont  is  Mount 
Mansfield,  about  twenty  miles  northwest  of  Mont- 
pelier.     It  has  an  altitude  of  4364  feet. 

In  St.  Johnsbury  is  a  great  twelve-acre  factory  de- 
voted to  the  making  of  scales.  It  is  the  largest  factory 
in  its  line  in  the  world.     Over  one  hundred  varieties 


310 


New   England 


of  scales  are  made.  The  smallest  will  weigh  a  letter, 
and  the  largest  will  weigh  a  loaded  railroad  car.  These 
Vermont  scales  are  the  standard  in  many  countries. 

Another  widely  known  manufacture  of  the  Green 
Mountain  State  is  that  of  organs  for  homes  and  for 
churches  and  other  public  buildings,  at  Brattleboro. 
In  the  vicinity  of  this  town  the  famous  English  author, 
Rudyard  Kipling,  abode  for  a  time,  and  there  wrote 


Mount  Manstield  from  Smuggler's  Cove 

"Captains   Courageous,"   a  story   of    the    Gloucester 

fishermen  which  ranks  among  the  best  of  boys'  books. 

One  noteworthy  source  of  wealth  in  Vermont  is  its 

quarries.     Limestone  is  gotten  out  for  building  pur- 


Vermont   Industries  311 

poses  and  also  to  be  burned  for  lime.  Granite  of 
different  colors  and  textures  is  quarried  at  various 
places,  and  in  and  about  Barre  this  industry  employs 
many  thousands  of  workers. 

Some  of  the  most  important  of  American  slate  quar- 
ries are  in  Vermont.     Slate  is  a  stone  that  can  easily 


A  Barre  granite  quarry 


be  split  into  thin  layers  with  smooth  surfaces.  It  is 
largely  used  for  roofing,  and  the  pieces  after  splitting 
need  scarcely  any  preparation  except  trimming  to  make 
them  ready  for  laying.  The  stone  is  so  compact  and 
hard  that  it  resists  the  weather  very  effectively .     Slate 


312 


New   England 


for  school  blackboards  is  polished  by  rubbing  it  with 

sand,  pumice  stone,  and  water. 

Marble  began  to  be  quarried  in  the  state  soon  after 

the  Revolution,  and  over  half  the  marble  used  in  the 

country  since 
that  time  has 
come  from  Ver- 
mont. It  is  a 
comparatively 
soft  and  fragile 
stone  and  has 
to  be  handled 
with  a  good  deal 
of  care.  The 
marble  is  used 
for  building 
l)urposes     and 

ig*S5r-"M^-^ '^■'■"M-Vr'     .  j^V     -Mii^    f^^i*  statues  and 

^=:y^^-m~^'^^^'mb-^   ^m-   M""""-    monuments. 

The  Greeks 
used  marble  for 
some  of  their 
most  famous 
buildings  and 
statues. 
The  great  quarries  of  West  Rutland  were  first  worked 

in  1836.     Before  that  the  site  of  the  quarries  had  been 

a  barren  sheep  pasture,  shaggy  with  stunted  evergreens. 

The  wealth  this  pasture  roofed  was  undreamed  of,  and 


Lake  Willoughby 


Vermont   Industries 


313 


the  whole  tract  was  so  cheaply  valued  that  it  was  once 
exchanged  for  an  old  horse  worth  less  than  a  single  one 


The  depths  t)l  a  Rulland  marble  quarry 

of  the  huge  blocks  of  marble  that  day  after  day  are 
hoisted  from  the  quarry  depths.  In  the  early  years 
the  growth  of  the  business  was  slow,  for  there  were  no 
railroads  in  the  region,  and  all  the  marble  had  to  be 
drawn  by  teams  twenty-five  miles  to  Whitehall  on 
Lake  Champlain,  the  nearest  shipping  point. 

Besides,  there  was  doubt  as  to  the  durability  of  the 
stone.  But  now  long  exposure  to  our  variable  and 
destructive  weather  has  proved  it  to  excel  any  foreign 


314  New   England 

marble  in  this  quality.  Since  1852,  when  a  line  of  rail- 
road that  passed  near  was  completed,  the  marble 
business  of  Rutland  has  increased  rapidly.  The  quar- 
ries are  on  level  ground,  and  the  excavation  has  gone  to 
a  depth  of  over  one  hundred  feet.  Machines  on  mov- 
able railways  cut  grooves  and  drill  series  of  holes  in 
the  marble  floor,  and  mark  off  the  stone  into  blocks. 
These  blocks  are  separated  from  the  rest  of  the  mass 
by  the  use  of  iron  wedges,  for  blasting  would  injure  the 
stone. 

Most  of  the  marble  is  taken  out  in  oblong  blocks  that 
have  a  length  of  ten  or  fifteen  feet,  and  a  width  and 
thickness  of  from  three  to  five  feet.  To  cut  the  rough 
blocks  into  such  shapes  and  sizes  as  buyers  desire,  be- 
fore sending  the  marble  away,  saws  are  used  which 
consist  simply  of  long  smooth  strips  of  steel.  Very 
hard  sand  borne  by  a  little  stream  of  water  is  con- 
tinually supplied  under  the  machine-moved  saws  as 
they  sway  backward  and  forward.  The  sand  rubs 
against  the  marble  and  does  the  cutting  at  the  rate  of 
about  two  and  a  half  inches  an  hour.  Sand  and  water 
are  also  used  for  polishing. 

Marble  is  usually  nearly  white,  but  differs  a  good 
deal  in  delicate  shades  and  markings.  In  the  north- 
western part  of  the  state  beautiful  variegated  and  black 
marbles  are  quarried.  They  are  much  harder  than  the 
Rutland  marble,  and  it  costs  more  to  shape  and  polish 
them. 

There  is  very  little  level  land  in  Vermont,  and  among 


Vermont   Industries 


315 


the  towns  of  the  state  are  scarcely  any  which  do  not 
contain  some  mountain  or  lofty  hill  from  which  a  de- 
lightful view  can  be  obtained.  The  mountains  are 
nearly  all  clothed  with  verdure  from  base  to  summit, 


Newbury  beside  the  Connecticut 

and  the  name  of  the  state,  derived  from  two  French 
words,  Verd  Mont,  which  mean  Green  Mountain,  is 
very  appropriate. 

The  state  abounds  in  lakes,  ponds,  and  httle  rivers, 
and  is  one  of  the  most  attractive  of  the  nation's  summer 
playgrounds. 


The  Sheepscot  River,  a  little  east  of  the  Kennebec 

Historic   Maine 

AN  early  English  visitor  to  the  Maine  coast  was 
Captain  Weymouth,  who  landed  about  the  first 
of  June,  1605,  halfway  between  the  Penobscot  and 
Kennebec  rivers,  and  explored  the  neighboring  streams, 

harbors,    and   islands.     The    Indians   brought   many 

316 


Historic   Maine  317 

furs  to  the  English  ship  to  exchange  for  trinkets.  One 
day  they  took  several  of  the  crew  who  were  on  shore 
to  where  other  Indians  sat  around  some  fires  laughing 
and  talking,  while  puffs  of  smoke  rose  from  their 
mouths.  Probably  the  sailors  had  never  seen  any 
one  smoking  before.  Deerskins  were  spread  for  the 
white  men  to  sit  on,  and  a  pipe,  the  bowl  of  which  was 
made  of  a  lobster's  claw,  was  passed  to  them.  They 
sucked  the  smoke  into  their  mouths  as  they  saw  the 
natives  doing,  and  called  the  operation  "drinking 
tobacco." 

When  Captain  Weymouth  was  nearly  ready  to  sail 
away  he  had  three  Indians,  who  came  to  the  vessel, 
seized  and  thrust  below  deck.  Several  sailors  rowed 
ashore  and  caught  two  more  savages.  It  was  as  much 
as  they  could  do  to  grip  the  nearly  naked  Indians  and 
get  them  into  the  boat.  They  had  to  drag  them  on 
board  by  their  topknots.  The  captives  were  taken  as 
slaves  to  England,  but  Captain  Weymouth  felt  that 
he  was  conferring  a  benefit  on  them  because  they 
would  be  taught  his  language  and  religion. 

Two  years  later,  toward  the-  end  of  August,  an  Eng- 
lish colony  arrived  from  their  homeland  in  two  vessels, 
and  started  a  colony  on  the  peninsula  west  of  the 
Kennebec  where  the  river  joins  the  sea.  The  ships 
returned  to  England,  and  the  settlers  busied  themselves 
building  houses  and  a  little  vessel.  By  the  time  winter 
set  in  with  its  sleet  and  snow,  they  had  finished  a  fort, 
a  storehouse,  one  large  dwelling,  and  a  number  of  small 


31 8 


New   England 


ones.  But  the  storehouse  burned  with  all  their  pro- 
visions and  the  furs  they  had  bought  from  the  Indians. 
They  were  obliged  to  live  on  fish  and  such  game  as  they 
could  shoot,  and  on  dog  meat.  Their  cabins  could  not 
keep  out  the  searching  winds  and  biting  frost.  Many 
of  them  wTre  sick,  and  their  leader,  George  Popham, 

died.     In    the 
^  sprmg   a  ship 

came  with  sup- 
plies, but  the 
settlers  de- 
clared it  was 
of  no  use  for 
Englishmen  to 
try  to  live  in 
such  a  cold 
country,  and 
they  all  either 
returned  to  England,  or  went  in  the  little  vessel  they 
had  built  to  Jamestown,  Virginia. 

For  some  time  afterward  only  fishermen  pitched 
their  tents  or  built  their  huts  along  the  rocky  Maine 
coast. 

In  1 614  the  famous  Captain  John  Smith  with  two 
ships  and  forty-five  men  visited  the  region.  He  and 
his  fellows  built  seven  boats  in  the  vicinity  of  the 
Kennebec,  and  used  them  in  part  for  fishing,  and  in 
part  for  exploring  with  the  hope  of  discovering  gold 
and  copper  mines.     No  mines  were  found,  but  Smith 


The  Suulhcru  Ciu^s  ou  ihc  Maine  coast 


Historic   Maine 


3^9 


was  presently  able  to  sail  to  England  in  one  of  his  ships 
with  a  valuable  cargo  of  fish  and  furs.  The  master  of 
the  other  ship  tarried  behind  and  prowled  along  the 
coast  as  far  as  Cape  Cod,  capturing  natives  at  several 
places.  Finally,  he  crossed  the  ocean  with  twenty- 
seven  of  them  whom  he  sold  as  slaves  in  Spain. 

Maine's  first  permanent  settlement  was  made  in 
1624  by  emigrants  from  Plymouth  Colony  at  what  is 
now  York,  but  which  they  gave  the  local  Indian  name 
of  Agamenticus. 

A  few  years  later  Sir  Ferdinando  Gorges  was  made 
proprietary  lord  of  the  country  between  the  Piscataqua 
and  Kennebec  rivers,  and  as  far  north  as  Lake  Um- 
bagog.  The  region  was  given  the  name  of  Maine  in 
honor  of  the  English  queen,  who  came  from  France, 
where  her  estate  was  the  province  of  Mayne, 

The  settlements  were  increasing  in  number,  and  Gor- 
ges, who  directed  the  affairs  of  the  colony  from  his 
English  home,  foresaw  a  rich  reward.  He  selected  the 
plantation  of  Agamenticus  for  his  capital,  and  presently 
made  it  a  city,  naming  it  for  himself,  Gorgeana.  It 
comprised  twenty-one  square  miles.  The  city  had  a 
mayor,  aldermen,  and  councilmen,  and  there  were 
policemen,  each  of  whom  carried  a  white  rod.  Yet 
Gorgeana  never  had  as  many  as  three  hundred  in- 
habitants, and  at  the  end  of  ten  years  became  the 
town  of  York. 

In  1652  Massachusetts  laid  claim  to  Maine  as  far 
as  Casco  Bay,  and  administered  this  region  as  a  county 


^20  New   England 

with  the  name  of  Yorkshire.  The  heirs  of  Sir  Fer- 
dinando  Gorges  continued  to  have  a  claim  on  the 
country,  but  after  it  had  been  devastated  by  Kang 
Philip's  War  they  sold  all  their  rights  to  Massachusetts. 
From  the  time  of  the  Revolution  until  1820  Massa- 
chusetts governed  the  territory  under  the  name  of 
the  District  of  Maine.  Then  it  became  a  separate 
state. 

One  of  its  notable  men  in  the  colonial  period  was 
William  Phipps.  He  was  born  at  Woolwich  near  the 
mouth  of  the  Sheepscot  River  a  few  miles  east  of  the 
Kennebec,  in  1650.  His  parents  had  twenty-six 
children,  twenty-one  of  whom  were  boys.  When  he 
was  about  sixteen  years  of  age  his  father  died,  leaving 
little  else  than  a  small  farm  for  the  support  of  his 
numerous  family.  William  was  presently  apprenticed 
to  a  ship's  carpenter  for  four  years.  As  soon  as  his 
term  of  service  expired  he  went  to  Boston  and  worked 
at  his  trade  and  learned  to  read  and  write.  A  year  or 
two  later  he  married  and  returned  to  his  old  home  on 
the  Sheepscot  River,  where  he  made  a  business  of 
building  vessels. 

After  a  time  he  heard  that  a  Spanish  ship  laden 
with  treasure  had  sunk  near  the  Bahama  Islands. 
Shortly  afterward  he  made  a  voyage  to  England  and 
interested  the  Duke  of  Albemarle  in  the  treasure  ship. 
The  duke  furnished  a  vessel,  and  Phipps  sailed  to  the 
Bahamas.  He  encountered  serious  difficulties,  but  in 
the  end  found  the  wreck  lying  in  forty  or  fifty  feet  of 


Historic   Maine 


321 


water.  From  it  he  obtained  thirty-four  tons  of  silver, 
besides  gold,  pearls,  and  jewels,  worth  in  all  $1,350,000. 
His  share  of  this  amounted  to  seventy  thousand  dol- 
lars. For  the  fair  manner  in  which  he  treated  the  crew, 
and  the  honest  division  he  made  of  the  spoil,  the  king 
knighted  him,  and  the  Duke  and  Duchess  of  Albemarle 
sent  his  wife  a  gold  cup  worth  four  thousand  dollars 
as  a  mark  of  their  esteem.  He  was  appointed  high 
sheriff  of  New  England,  and  later  governor  of  the 
colony  of  Massachusetts. 

By  1675  Maine  had  thirteen  settlements,  and  these 
contained   five   or   six   thousand   inhabitants.     Their 


©  KalkhoirCo.,N.  Y. 

Block  house  at  Fort  Kent,  a  relic  of  the  days 
of  Indian  warfare 


vessels  bore  away  ample  freights  of  lumber  from  the 
mills,  furs  from  the  trading  houses  on  the  rivers,  and 


322  New   England 

fish  from  the  sea.  The  fields  yielded  abundantly,  and 
thriving  herds  of  cattle  were  in  the  woody  pastures. 

Then  came  the  Indian  wars,  and  for  nearly  a  cen- 
tury the  settlers  were  in  constant  terror  of  savage 
raiders.  The  trouble  began  in  the  summer  of  1676 
when  King  Philip  and  his  warriors  were  being  hunted 
down.  Many  of  the  Indians  from  the  defeated  tribes 
fled  and  mingled  with  the  red  men  of  Maine.  One  of 
these  refugees,  known  as  "Simon,  the  Yankee-killer," 
visited  the  home  of  Anthony  Brackett  at  Back  Cove 
in  what  is  now  Portland.  On  the  ninth  of  August 
the  Indians  killed  a  cow  of  Mr.  Brackett's,  and  he 
complained  to  Simon. 

"I  can  bring  to  you  the  fellows  who  killed  the  ani- 
mal," Simon  declared. 

He  went  off  and  two  days  later  returned  with  a  party 
of  savages.  "These  are  the  Indians  who  killed  your 
cow,"  he  said  to  Mr.  Brackett. 

Then  they  seized  and  bound  the  entire  family,  con- 
sisting of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Brackett,  their  five  children, 
and  a  negro  man-servant.  Afterward  they  went  to 
neighboring  homes,  killed  or  captured  thirty-four  per- 
sons, and  set  the  buildings  on  fire.  The  Brackett 
family  continued  in  captivity  until  November,  at 
which  time  their  captors  came,  in  their  wanderings,  to 
the  north  side  of  Casco  Bay.  Mrs.  Brackett  found  an 
old  birch  canoe  on  the  beach.  She  repaired  it,  and  the 
family  and  the  negro  man  secretly  got  into  it  and 
paddled   across   the  bay  to   Black  Point.     A   vessel 


Historic   Maine  323 

bound  for  the  Piscataqua  chanced  to  be  there,  and  on 
it  they  made  good  their  escape. 

The  Indians  engaged  in  forays  all  along  the  coast. 
They  even  had  an  ambitious  scheme  to  capture  the 
white  men's  fishing  vessels  and  sail  down  the  coast 
in  them  to  burn  Boston.  In  July,  1676,  they  re- 
sorted to  the  islands  that  the  fishermen  frequented  in 
Casco  Bay,  and  prowled  along  the  shores  spying  out 
their  prey.  One  dark  night  they  noiselessly  embarked 
in  their  light  canoes,  boarded  the  motionless  vessels 
lying  at  anchor,  and  killed  or  captured  their  sleep- 
ing crews.  Thus  they  secured  about  twenty  vessels, 
each  of  which  had  had  a  crew  of  from  three  to  six 
men. 

When  news  of  this  reached  Boston,  a  large  ship  was 
sent  to  the  scene,  well  supphed  with  cannon  and 
small  arms,  and  manned  by  forty  sailors  and  soldiers. 
It  was  expected  that  the  ship  would  encounter  the 
captured  fleet  in  the  hands  of  the  Indians,  and  that 
there  would  be  a  battle.  But  she  found  the  vessels, 
one  here,  one  there,  some  aground  and  some  beating 
against  the  rocks.  They  were  too  large  to  be  pro- 
pelled with  paddles,  and  the  Indians  could  not  navi- 
gate them.  The  sails  had  veered  and  flapped  about, 
and  the  vessels  had  gone  in  every  direction  except  the 
one  the  dusky  mariners  wanted  to  go.  So  the  Indians 
soon  abandoned  their  prizes  in  fright  and  disgust. 

During  King  Philip's  War  more  than  half  of  the  Maine 
settlements  were  laid  waste,  and  nearly  three  hundred 


324  New   England 

of  the  inhabitants  were  killed,  or  carried  into  captivity 
from  which  they  never  returned. 

Of  all  the  combats  in  Maine  between  the  whites 
and  Indians  the  best  known  is  "Lovewell's  Fight." 
This  has  been  celebrated  both  in  prose  and  in  ballads. 
In  the  middle  of  April,  1725,  Captain  Lovewell  with 
forty-six  volunteers  started  from  Dunstable,  Massa- 
chusetts, to  hunt  Indians  about  the  headwaters  of  the 
Saco.  They  did  this  partly  because  the  Indians  were 
a  menace  to  the  settlements,  and  partly  in  hope  of 
profit,  for  a  liberal  bounty  had  been  promised  for 
every  Indian  scalp. 

One  of  the  party  returned  on  account  of  lameness. 
Later,  another  was  disabled  by  reason  of  an  old  wound, 
and  he,  with  a  kinsman  to  help  him,  went  back  to  the 
settlements. 

By  the  time  the  force  reached  Ossipee  Pond  in  New 
Hampshire  the  serious  illness  of  one  of  their  number 
caused  them  all  to  halt,  and  they  built  there  a  small 
stockade  fort.  There  they  left  the  sick  man  with  a 
surgeon  and  eight  of  the  most  weary  of  the  party. 
The  rest  continued  their  march  toward  what  is  now 
known  as  Lovewell's  Pond  in  Fryeburg,  Maine,  twenty- 
two  miles  distant.  On  the  night  of  Friday,  May  sev- 
enth, they  encamped  by  a  brook  that  enters  the  pond 
at  the  northwest  corner.  Only  two  miles  farther  on 
was  Pigwacket,  the  principal  village  of  the  Indians  of 
that  region. 

The  next  morning,  while  the  adventurers  were  at 


Historic   Maine  325 

prayers,  the  report  of  a  gun  was  heard.  They  went 
along  north  of  the  pond  in  the  direction  whence  the 
sound  came,  and  had  arrived  on  a  level  plain  when 
they  saw  an  Indian  standing  on  a  point  that  thrust 
out  into  the  pond  on  the  east  side.  The  men  left  their 
packs  among  the  ferns  and  moved  cautiously  forward. 


Indian  Island  above  Oldtown.     This  is  the  dwelhng-place 
of  a  remnant  of  the  once  powerful  Penobscot  tribe 

In  a  short  time  they  met  the  Indian  returning  toward 
the  village,  and  fired  and  killed  him. 

Meanwhile,  a  party  of  Indians  led  by  Paugus,  the 
chief  of  the  tribe,  found  the  packs  which  had  been 
left  on  the  plain.  They  counted  them  and  found 
that  their  own  force  was  three  times  as  strong  as  that 
of  the  English.  It  was  now  about  ten  o'clock.  Love- 
well  and  his  men  started  to  go  back  the  way  they  had 


326  New  England 

come.  They  had  passed  over  a  stream,  since  known  as 
Battle  Brook,  and  were  crossing  the  plain  when  the 
savages  came  rushing  toward  them  from  front  and 
rear  yelling  like  demons.  The  English  responded  with 
determined  shouts,  and  fired  a  volley  that  made  the 
Indians  withdraw  somewhat. 

But  the  savages  soon  pressed  near  again,  and  some  of 
the  combatants  were  not  more  than  twice  the  length 
of  their  guns  apart  when  they  fired.  Captain  Love- 
well  was  mortally  wounded,  but  he  leaned  against  a 
tree  and  kept  on  shooting  even  after  he  was  too  far 
gone  to  speak.  When  eight  had  been  slain  besides  the 
captain,  the  party  fell  back  to  the  pond.  On  their 
right  was  Battle  Brook,  on  the  left  a  rocky  point,  and 
in  front  they  were  partially  protected  by  a  deep  bog 
and  a  belt  of  tall  pines.  There  the  Indians  beset  them 
for  the  rest  of  the  day. 

Some  of  the  guns  became  foul  with  so  much  firing, 
and  John  Chamberlain  went  down  to  the  brook  to 
wash  his  out.  While  he  was  doing  this  he  observed  a 
huge  Indian  not  far  away  engaged  in  the  same  task, 
and  the  Indian  saw  him.  Both  finished  the  washing 
in  all  haste  and  began  loading  at  the  same  instant. 

"Me  kill  you  now  !"  the  Indian  shouted. 

"Maybe  not,"  Chamberlain  responded. 

They  fired,  and  Chamberlain's  bullet  crashed 
through  his  foe's  brain.  The  Indian's  bullet  whistled 
harmlessly  up  in  the  air. 

Just  before  dark   the  savages  retired,   and  about 


Historic   Maine  327 

midnight  the  moon  rose.  Then  the  Enghsh  began  a 
retreat.  Two  of  the  mortally  wounded  had  to  be  left. 
Only  nine  were  uninjured,  and  they  were  without  food, 
for  their  packs  had  been  captured.  One  man,  ex- 
hausted by  fatigue  and  loss  of  blood  from  three  wounds, 
had  crawled  slowly  and  painfully  to  the  edge  of  the 
pond,  and  there  found  a  birch  canoe.  He  managed 
to  enter  it  and  push  it  ofif  from  the  shore.  Then  he 
lay  down  in  it,  and  the  wind  wafted  the  craft  to  the 
western  side  of  the  pond.  After  a  while  he  recovered 
his  strength  a  little,  and  he  finally  reached  the  Ossipee 
fort. 

The  rest  of  the  party  had  travelled  no  more  than  a 
mile  or  two  when  four  of  them  stopped,  unable  to  keep 
longer  on  their  feet.  At  their  request  the  others  went 
on.  They  themselves  presently  resumed  the  journey, 
and  continued  for  several  days,  alternately  resting 
and  walking  a  little  way.  But  they  grew  weaker  and 
weaker,  and  first  one  and  then  a  second  sank  to  rise  no 
more.  One  of  the  remaining  two  reached  the  Ossipee 
fort,  and  the  fourth  man  made  his  way  along  the  side 
of  the  Saco  River  down  to  Biddeford,  where  he  arrived 
emaciated  by  hunger  almost  to  a  skeleton. 

It  was  Wednesday  when  the  remnant  of  Lovewell's 
band  got  to  Ossipee  Pond,  so  slowly  did  they  travel, 
and  so  indirect  was  their  route.  They  found  the  fort 
deserted.  One  of  the  company  had  run  away  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  fight,  and  reported  to  the  men  at  the  fort 
that  Captain  Lovewell  had  met  with  disaster.     They 


328 


New   England 


did  not  doubt  that  all  his  force  had  been  killed  or  cap- 
tured, and  that  the  savages  would  fall  on  the  fort  next. 


The  headwaters  of  the  Saco 

So  they  considered  it  prudent  to  start  for  the  settle- 
ments. 

Luckily  they  left  some  bread  and  pork,  and  these 
saved  the  fugitives  from  starvation.  The  only  food 
of  the  little  band  during  their  retreat  had  been  a  few- 
roots  and  the  bark  of  trees.  After  a  short  rest  they 
went  on,  and  at  last  reached  home,  where  they  were 
received  with  great  joy,  as  if  they  had  been  restored 
from  the  dead. 


in  ihe  heart  of  the  ISIaine  woods 
The  Maine   Forests 

ALL  the  eastern  portion  of  the  United  States  was 
formerly  heavily  timbered,  but  now  most  of  the 
trees  have  been  cleared  away  to  make  room  for  the 
cultivation  of  crops  and  for  pasturing  domestic  ani- 
mals.    The  forests  that  remain  are  chiefly  in  regions 

329 


3 30  New   England 

where  the  land  is  not  desirable  for  farms,  or  in  dis- 
tricts far  away  from  settled  communities.  But  in 
northern  New  England  extensive  forests  still  exist. 
Nearly  all  of  Maine  from  the  White  Mountains  eastward 
is  woodland,  and  in  it  both  Connecticut  and  Rhode 
Island  might  be  placed  and  lost  to  the  world  and  to 
each  other.  If  you  climb  Mount  Katahdin,  the  state's 
loftiest  mountain,  which  rises  to  a  height  of  5273  feet, 


Mount  Katahdin  from  the  West  Branch  of  the  Penobscot 

you  can  see  from  its  summit  only  trees  as  far  as  the 
eye  can  reach.  Katahdin  is  almost  in  the  exact  centre 
of  the  state. 

The  forest  once  contained  many  tall  pines  that  thrust 
up  above  the  other  trees  and  gave  to  Maine  the  title 
of  "The  Pine  Tree  State."     But  these  big  pines  have 


The  Maine  Forests 


331 


nearly  all  been  cut  now,  and  the  most  numerous  of  the 
valuable  forest  trees  that  remain  are  spruce.  An 
immense  amount  of  timber  comes  from  Maine's  wil- 
derness every  year. 

Formerly  logging  did  not  begin  until  early  in  the 
winter  when  the  boggy  places  in  the  rude  forest  roads 
had  been  frozen  and  the  snow  had  smoothed  over  their 
unevenness.  Now  cutting  starts  in  late  summer  that 
the  logs  may 
be  ready  to  be 
moved  when 
the  snow 
comes.  Some- 
what before  a 
lumber  crew 
begins  work 
an  advance 
guard  goes  to 
the  forest 
where  their  employers'  claim  is  located.  They  select 
a  spot  near  one  of  the  lakes  or  small  streams  that  are 
so  numerous  in  the  swampy  northern  woodland,  and 
establish  a  camp  to  serve  them  and  their  comrades 
during  the  long  cold  winter.  A  hut  is  built  of  logs. 
The  ends  of  the  logs  are  notched  so  they  will  fit  firmly 
together,  and  the  chinks  between  them  are  stopped 
with  moss  and  clay.  A  stone  fireplace  is  constructed 
at  one  end.  The  roof  is  made  of  long  split  shingles 
covered  with  spruce  boughs,  which,  after  the  first  fall 


A  lumberman's  camp 


332  New  England 

of  snow,  keep  out  the  wind  and  frost  very  effectively. 
Under  the  roof  is  a  loft  with  the  men's  bunks  ranged 
along  the  walls. 

In  the  early  days  the  huts  had  only  the  hard-trodden 
earth  for  floors,  but  now  every  camp  is  fitted  up  with 
a  certain  rude  comfort.  There  are  plank  floors,  long 
tables  and  benches,  and  a  considerable  assortment  of 
dishes.  Plenty  of  good  food  that  is  varied  enough  not 
to  get  tiresome  is  provided.  Bread,  doughnuts,  beef, 
pork,  codfish,  potatoes,  beans,  and  molasses  are  the 
staples.  Sometimes  a  lucky  shot  may  secure  bear  or 
moose  meat  to  feast  on  for  a  few  days. 

The  beans  are  cooked  to  perfection  in  a  bean  hole  — 
an  excavation  three  or  four  feet  deep  just  outside  of 
the  log  dwelling.  Late  in  the  day  a  fire  is  built  in  the 
hole,  and  when  the  wood  is  reduced  to  a  great  heap  of 
coals  the  bean  pot,  with  the  beans  and  some  tins  of 
brown  bread  inside,  is  placed  in  the  hole  and  covered 
with  coals.  Ashes  and  earth  are  then  heaped  on,  and 
the  pot  is  left  there  through  the  night.  It  is  exhumed 
in  the  early  morning,  and  the  beans  and  brown  bread 
are  eaten  for  breakfast.  The  woodsmen  all  agree  that 
beanhole  beans  are  far  superior  to  the  oven  product. 

Near  the  cabin  dwelling  of  the  choppers  another  is 
built  with  much  care  to  make  it  snug  for  the  horses. 
Tote  teams  usually  have  brought  supplies  into  the 
woods  at  the  end  of  the  previous  winter  while  the 
roads  were  still  frozen  and  snowy. 

A  boss  is  in  charge  of  the  crew,  and  he  sees  that  the 


The   Maine   Forests  333 

choppers,  teamsters,  and  cook  do  their  work  properl}-. 
He  decides  where  to  begin  feUing  the  trees,  and  then  all 
hands  clear  a  road  from  that  spot  to  the  lake  or  stream. 
Over  this  road  the  logs  are  drawn  later.  They  are 
left  either  on  the  ice  of  the  lake  or  at  landings  beside 
the  stream.  The  men  are  busy  plying  their  axes 
and  saws  from  dawn  until  sunset,  except  for  a  short 
pause  at  noon  for  dinner.  Often  the  evenings  are 
enlivened  by  songs  and  games. 

There  is  more  or  less  danger  in  swinging  the  axes 
and  felhng  the  trees  and  handling  the  logs,  and  oc- 
casionally a  man  is  wounded  or  even  killed.  A  broken 
limb,  or  a  deep  axe  cut,  or  sickness  is  a  serious  matter 
in  the  lonely  woodland  far  from  any  village  or  town. 

When  the  spring  sun  melts  the  ice  and  snow,  the 
piles  of  logs  on  the  frozen  lakes  are  set  afloat,  and  those 
on  the  banks  of  the  streams  are  rolled  down  into  the 
flooded  waterways.  The  arduous  and  exciting  work  of 
the  river-driver  now  begins.  He  scorns  danger  and 
discomfort,  and  the  different  crews  vie  with  each  other 
in  deeds  of  skill  and  daring.  The  men  carry  a  long 
pole  or  a  cant-hook,  and  their  shoe  soles  are  set  thick 
with  sharp  iron  points  so  they  can  leap  about  on  the 
smooth  logs  without  slipping.  They  urge  the  logs 
onward  where  the  current  is  slow,  and  try  to  avoid 
their  forming  jams  in  channels  which  are  narrow  or 
rocky. 

Often  the  chance  lodging  of  one  or  two  logs  will 
obstruct  the  passage,  and  others  pressing  on  behind 


334 


New   England 


will  pile  up  one  above  the  other  in  the  greatest  con- 
fusion. To  break  one  of  these  jams  is  a  difhcult  and 
perhaps  perilous  task.  There  are  times  when  this  has 
to  be  done  by  cutting  through  a  single  log  w^hich  holds 
back  all  the  rest.  The  instant  it  is  severed  the  whole 
mighty  mass  is  let  loose,  and  only  by  the  greatest 
alertness  and  good  judgment  can  the  chopper  escape. 


Kennebago  Falls 


(t3  Kalkhujj  Co.,  N.  Y. 


If  the  jam  forms  between  high  rocky  shores,  a  man 
may  be  let  down  by  a  rope  from  a  cliff  to  set  the  logs 
moving  again. 

The  lumber  companies  improve  the  streams  by  clear- 
ing away  obstructions  that  are  likely  to  cause  trouble, 


The  Maine   Forests  335 

and  they  build  dams  at  the  outlets  of  the  lakes  to  re- 
tain the  water  until  it  is  needed  to  float  the  logs. 

When  the  logs  reach  their  destination  they  are 
stopped  by  a  boom  that  stretches  across  the  river,  and 
they  are  gradually  conducted  thence  to  the  neighboring 
sawmills,  which,  with  their  teeth  of  steel,  transform 
them  into  beams,  boards,  and  lath.  In  the  big  modern 
mills  there  is  no  waste.  The  sawdust  is  burned  in  the 
engine  boilers,  and  portions  of  the  logs  that  will  not 
make  good  lumber  can  be  sold  for  making  paper-pulp, 
or  for  firewood. 

Spruce  is  the  wood  most  used  for  paper,  though  a 
number  of  other  trees  also  furnish  good  fibre.  Crooked 
and  seamy  logs  and  small  trees  and  sawmill  fragments 
that  formerly  had  no  value  are  excellent  for  pulp.  After 
the  logs  have  been  cut  into  suitable  lengths,  a  ma- 
chine with  rotating  blades  gnaws  off  the  bark.  Then 
the  knots  are  bored  out.  For  coarse  grades  of  paper 
the  wood  is  ground  into  fibre  by  being  pressed  against 
a  grindstone.  For  better  paper  it  is  slashed  into  chips, 
and  the  chips  are  converted  into  pulp  by  a  chemical 
process. 

Some  of  the  pulp  companies  have  bought  great  tracts 
of  forest,  where  by  wise  and  careful  cutting  the  spruce 
may  grow  as  fast  as  used.  A  large  portion  of  the 
material  that  goes  into  wrapping-paper,  newspapers, 
books,  and  cheap  grades  of  writing-paper  is  made 
from  wood-pulp.  The  first  wood-pulp  mill  began 
operations  in  1870. 


33^ 


New   England 


Of  all  the  forest  trees  none  was  put  to  more  uses  by 
the  Indians  and  pioneer  settlers  than  the  paper  birch. 


A  canoe  in  the  wilderness 

The  woodsman  with  his  axe  could  obtain  from  it  tent, 
boat,  buckets,  cups,  plates,  table-cloths,  paper  to  write 
on,  torches,  and  kindlings  and  other  fuel.  A  piece  of 
bark  a  yard  square  could  be  made  into  a  vessel  for  catch- 
ing maple  sap  by  folding  it  into  a  straight-sided  pan 
and  bending  the  corners  around  and  fastening  them  in 
place  with  a  wooden  pin. 

A  forest  visitor  about  the  year  1880  tells  how  his 
guide  made  a  birch-bark  canoe.  It  had  just  been  com- 
pleted when  he  arrived.  The  guide  had  spent  two  days 
ranging  the  mountains  looking  for  a  suitable  tree,  and 
a  week  more  transforming  the  bark  into  a  boat.     The 


The   Maine   Forests 


337 


canoe  was  twelve  feet  long.  Three  trees  besides  the 
birch  contributed  to  its  making.  The  white  cedar 
furnished  ribs  and  hning,  the  spruce  fibrous  roots  to 
sew  its  joints  and  bind  its  frame,  and  from  the  pine 
was  obtained  pitch  to  stop  its  seams  and  cracks. 

The  forest  visitor  records  that  one  day  while  tramp- 
ing they  were  overtaken  by  a  shower,  and  the  guide 
quickly  stripped  large  sheets  of  bark  from  a  near 
tree  to  serve  for  umbrellas.  When  they  moved  on  after 
the  shower,  the  visitor  wrapped  his  bark  about  him  like 
an  apron  to  shield  his  clothes  from  the  wet  bushes. 

There  are  many  mills  along  the  little  streams  that 
come  from  the  wooded  uplands  in  various  parts  of  the 
state.  These  mills  convert  both  hard  and  soft  wood 
into  such  articles  as  furniture,  sleds,  tool  handles,  toys, 
clothespins,  and  toothpicks.  Much  fine  white  birch 
wood  grows  in  some  sections,  and  thousands  of  cords 
of  it  are  used  yearly  for  spools.  It  is  first  sawed  into 
square  strips  and  left  in  piles  to  dry.  Later  the  strips 
are  fed  into  automatic  machines  which  quickly  turn 
them  into  spools  of  the  required  size. 

One  important  use  of  the  forests  is  to  prevent  the 
rapid  running  ofT  of  water.  The  roots  and  spongy 
leaf  mould  and  the  shade  all  help  to  hold  the  moisture. 
Where  the  forest  has  been  carelessly  destroyed  by 
lumbermen  or  laid  waste  by  fire,  the  water  from  storms 
and  melting  snow  quickly  escapes  to  the  streams,  and 
sudden  floods  are  a  result,  while  in  dry  times  the  water 
in  the  streams  is  very  low.     This  entails  danger  to 


338 


New   England 


crops  and  dwellings  along  the  banks  of  the  streams, 
and  uncertain  water-power  for  the  mills.  Thus  it  is 
essential  to  conserve  the  forests  at  the  headwaters  of 
our  rivers,  and  the  government  is  buying  large  areas 
of  such  woodland,  in  part  for  this  purpose,  and  in  part 
to  ensure  a  future  supply  of  lumber. 

In  the  hardwood  forests,  which  are  leafless  in  win- 
ter, spring  is  the  time  for  fires,  for  after  the  snow  is 


A  forest  lire 

gone  the  sun  shines  through  the  bare  branches  and 
makes  last  year's  leaves  as  dry  as  tinder.  A  lighted 
match  or  cigar  stub  heedlessly  dropped  is  all  that  is 
needed  to  start  a  fire  that  may  do  enormous  damage. 
The  fire  spreads  very  rapidly  if  a  high  wind  is  blowing, 
and  the  men  who  attempt  to  put  it  out  often  have  a 
difficult  task.  They  may  have  to  fight  it  day  and 
night  for  a  week  or  more. 


The  Maine   Forests  339 

The  ground  in  the  evergreen  woodlands  continues 
moist  all  through  the  spring,  and  they  suffer  most  from 
fires  in  a  summer  drought.  There  may  be  many  fires 
burning  at  the  same  time,  and  the  air  will  be  hazy  with 
smoke  over  great  stretches  of  country.  Something  like 
a  hundred  years  is  required  for  large  forest  trees  to 
grow,  and  when  a  fire  makes  a  clean  sweep  killing  all 
the  trees  in  its  path,  the  loss  is  a  very  serious  one. 

Perhaps  the  greatest  of  Maine's  forest  fires  occurred 
in  1762.  There  was  a  long  drought  in  the  spring,  and 
the  tree  fohage  in  June  was  shrivelled  and  blighted  for 
lack  of  moisture.  The  next  month  a  fire  started  in 
the  New  Hampshire  woods  and  swept  eastward, across 
York  and  Cumberland  counties  to  the  sea.  Not  until 
copious  rains  fell  late  in  August  were  the  flames  checked 
in  their  devastating  course. 

Maine  contains  more  than  eighteen  hundred  lakes 
and  ponds.  All  these,  together  with  the  rivers,  have  a 
surface  amounting  to  fully  one-tenth  of  the  land  area  of 
the  state.  Most  of  the  lakes  and  ponds  have  wooded 
surroundings.  The  largest  lake  is  Moosehead.  It 
is  forty  miles  long  and  from  four  to  twelve  broad. 
From  its  borders  Mount  Kineo  rises  eight  hundred 
feet  above  the  lake  level.  The  mountain  faces  the 
water  in  so  perpendicular  a  precipice  that  a  person 
could  jump  into  the  lake  from  its  top.  This  is  the 
largest  mass  of  hornstone  known  in  the  world,  and 
the  New  England  Indians  got  from  it  much  of  the 
flint  they  used  for  their  arrow-heads. 


340 


New   England 


The  solitudes  around  Moosehead  are  frequented  by 
big  game,  the  streams  are  full  of  fish,  and  the  lakes 
abound  with  water-fowl.  Here  and  there  a  few  faint 
trails  wind  through  the  forest,  most  of  them  of  little 


Moosehead  Lake  from  Kineo 


use  except  in  winter  ;  and  the  rivers  and  lakes  are  the 
chief  thoroughfares,  just  as  they  were  in  the  days  of 
the  first  explorers.  Even  the  Indians  are  not  alto- 
gether lacking,  for  a  remnant  of  the  once  powerful 
Penobscot  tribe  has  survived,  and  some  of  its  members 
continue  to  resort  to  the  woods  to  hunt  and  fish  and 
act  as  guides. 

The  four  hundred  persons  who  constitute  this  In- 
dian tribe  have  permanent  dwellings  on  the  outskirts 
of  the  \Vilderness  at  Oldtown,  where  they  occupy  an 


The   Maine   Forests 


341 


island  in  the  river.  A  lumberman's  bateau  rowed  by 
a  swarthy  Indian  gives  access  to  the  island.  Among 
the  dwellings,  which  are  set  helter-skelter  in  a  some- 
what close  group  at  one  end  of  the  island,  are  a  public 
hall,  a  school-house,  and  a  good-sized  church.  There 
are  no  streets  nor  roads  —  only  paths. 


Squaw  Mountain 


The  tribe  owns  considerable  land  which  the  state 
looks  after,  and  from  which  there  is  an  annual  income 
of  about  twenty  dollars  for  each  individual.  Oc- 
casionally a  young  islander  goes  to  college,  and  some  of 
them  have  won  fame  playing  ball  in  the  national 
leagues. 

The  levels  of  many  of  the  wilderness  lakes  vary  only 
a  few  feet,  and  boatmen,  by  short  portages,  or  by 
none  at  all,  pass  easily  from  one  to  another.     There 


342 


New   England 


are  mail- carriers  on  some  of  the  forest  streams.  One 
such  mail-carrier  paddles  his  canoe  twenty  miles  from 
Moosehead  Lake  to  Lake  Chesuncook,  where  there  are 
two  tiny  settlements.  The  journey  takes  him  all  day, 
and  he  returns  the  next  day.  At  each  of  the  Chesun- 
cook settlements  is  a  school-house,  and  the  teachers 
come  in  canoes  from  the  world  outside. 

Hunters,  fishermen,  and  other  pleasure-seekers  often 
make  long  trips  on  the  streams  and  lakes  for  days 

and  weeks  at  a 
time.  A  guide 
and  two  persons 
can  travel  com- 
fortably in  a 
canoe  and  carry 
a  tent,  food,  and 
the  necessary 
camp  utensils. 
These  trips  are 
not  without  a 
spice  of  danger, 
for  there  are 
rocky  rapids  to  run,  and  wide  lakes  to  cross  where 
the  waves  sometimes  threaten  to  engulf  the  frail 
canoe. 

Many  deer  and  moose  and  a  few  caribou  inhabit  the 
wild  lands.  These  animals  are  protected  by  law  most 
of  the  year,  but,  during  the  open  season  in  the  fall  when 
shooting  is  allowed,  thousands  of  sportsmen  flock  from 


A  deer  on  the  forest  borders 


The  Maine   Forests 


343 


the  cities  near  and  far  to  stay  a  few  days  or  perhaps  a 
few  weeks  at  camps  beside  remote  lakes  and  streams. 
They  come  partly  to  enjoy  the  crisp  air  and  the  beauty 
of  the  woodlands  and  the  rough  and  ready  life  of  the 
wilderness,  but  chiefly  for  the  excitement  of  hunting 
big  game. 

Scarcely  less  well  known  than  Moosehead  Lake  are 
the  Rangeley  Lakes,  nestling  among  forested  hills  in 


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One  of  Ihe  Rangeley  Lakes 

the  northwest  corner  of  the  state.  They  are  called  a 
fisherman's  paradise.  There  are  five  of  them,  all  con- 
nected by  navigable  waterways,  and  small  steamers 
ply  on  them  and  call  at  the  various  camps. 


Mending  a  sail,  Mount  Desert 
The   Coast  with   a   Hundred   Harbors 

AFTER  the  English  became  masters  of  Canada,  and 
French  and  Indian  raiders  from  the  north  were  no 
longer  to  be  feared,  the  tide  of  immigration  from  the 
older  settlements  of  New  England  set  strongly  east- 
ward.    In  the  summers  of  1760  and  1761  hundreds  of 

344 


The   Coast  with  a   Hundred   Harbors      345 

men  were  hastening  to  Maine  in  every  kind  of  craft 
that  would  float.  The  new  free  lands  were  an  irresist- 
ible bait,  the  forests  promised  inexhaustible  supplies 
of  timber,  the  swift  streams  gave  power  for  grist  and 
sawmills,  and  the  waters  teemed  with  fish.  As  a  rule 
only  the  men  went  the  first  season,  and  after  choos- 
ing sites  for  their  habitations  and  making  clearings 
they  sailed  for  their  old  homes.  But  the  next  spring 
they  returned  with  their  families.  Usually  two  or 
three  families  made  the  voyage  together  and  lived  in 
the  vessel  until  the  log  houses  were  built.  It  was  this 
hardy  race  of  settlers  that  founded  all  the  shore  towns 
east  of  Penobscot  Bay. 

This  entire  coast  and  that  in  the  other  direction  as 
far  as  Portland  is  a  labyrinth  of  headlands,  bays,  and 
isles.  The  shore-line  is  so  jagged  it  resembles  the 
teeth  of  a  saw,  and  there  are  so  many  sheltered  bays 
and  inlets  that  Maine  is  sometimes  called  "The  State 
of  One  Hundred  Harbors."  However,  from  Casco 
Bay  south  the  coast  is  indented  comparatively  little, 
and  the  sandy  beaches  of  Old  Orchard,  York,  and  other 
towns  along  the  shore  are  well-known  summer  resorts. 
The  irregularity  of  Maine's  coast-line  as  a  whole  is 
such  that  it  is  nearly  twenty-five  hundred  miles 
long. 

Many  lighthouses  are  needed  to  warn  ships  away 
from  the  reefs  and  rocky  islands.  All  the  New  Eng- 
land coast  is  dotted  with  them,  some  tall,  some  short, 
some  on  craggy  islets,  some  on  outjutting  cliflfs  or  high 


346 


New   England 


banks,  some  rising  out  of  the  sea.  For  the  effective 
service  of  the  Hghthouses  we  are  greatly  indebted  to  a 
native  of  France  named  Fresnel.  As  a  boy  he  disliked 
learning  from  books,  and  when  he  was  eight  years  old 
he  did  not  know  his  letters.  But  he  was  very  fond  of 
making  experiments,  and  this  induced  his  parents  to 
send  him  from  the  small  town  where  they  Uved  to  a 
special  school  in  Paris.  There  he  worked  ver}^  earn- 
estly and  at  length  became  an  engineer,  and  invented 
a  way  to  cause  the  light  in  a  lighthouse  to  be  seen  a 
long  distance.  He  improved  the  lamp,  and  he  en- 
closed the  light  with  a  sort  of  glass  barrel  of  many  lenses 


Old  Orchard  Beach 


SO  arranged  that  all  the  light  rays  would  go  forth  to 
illumine  the  sea,  and  not  skyward  or  toward  the  ground 


The   Coast   with   a   Hundred   Harbors 


347 


or  water  at  the  foot  of  the  Hghthouse.    Often  the  hght 
can  be  seen  twenty  miles  away. 

Some  of  the  Hghts  are  fixed  Hghts,  and  may  be  either 
red  or  yellow.  Others  revolve  so  that  they  flash  forth 
at  intervals.  Each  lighthouse  has  its  characteristic 
light.     For   instance,   a   hght    on    Marthas  Vineyard 


Portland  Head  Li<iht 


flashes  once  in  ten  seconds,  and  every  fourth  flash  is 
red.  Provincetown  has  a  red  Hght  that  flashes  every 
fifteen  seconds.  Boston  Light  flashes  white  every 
thirty  seconds.  The  government  prints  a  catalogue  of 
all  the  Hghthouses.  This  tells  the  kind  of  light  given 
out  by  each  of  them.  All  ships  carry  the  catalogue,  and 
if  a  vessel  goes  astray  in  a  storm  it  can  usually  tell 
where  it  is  as  soon  as  it  sights  the  Hght  of  a  lighthouse. 


34^  New  England 

The  lighthouses  are  made  as  conspicuous  as  possible 
so  they  can  be  quickly  recognized  in  the  daytime  by 
their  shape  or  color.  One  will  be  white,  another  red, 
another  striped  horizontally  red  and  white,  another 
banded  in  a  black  and  white  spiral. 

Besides  maintaining  lighthouses  the  government  has 
estabHshed  life-saving  stations  where  men  are  ever 
on  the  watch  during  the  stormy  part  of  the  year  to 
rescue  people  from  wrecks.  Hundreds  of  persons  are 
rescued  from  death  every  year,  and  millions  of  dollars' 
worth  of  property  saved. 

Fishing,  ship-building,  and  commerce  once  brought 
prosperity  to  the  little  towns  along  the  Maine  coast, 
but  in  recent  times  these  industries  have  concentrated 
in  places  with  good  railway  connections.  Many  of  the 
young  people  have  sought  work  and  a  livelier  environ- 
ment in  the  cities,  and  the  seaboard  population  has 
decreased..  Every  village  used  to  send  schooners  to  the 
fishing  banks.  Now  very  few  sail  except  from  Portland. 
The  shore  fisheries  are,  however,  important,  and  more 
than  seventy  factories  are  engaged  in  canning  lobsters, 
clams,  and  small  herring. 

The  lobsters  are  caught  in  cage-like  traps  called 
lobster  pots.  The  pots  are  weighted  with  stones  and 
lowered  to  the  bottom  where  the  lobsters  crawl  around 
among  the  rocks  and  seaweed.  Inside  of  each  pot  is 
a  fish  head  for  bait,  and  when  the  lobster  crawls  in  to 
get  it  he  is  too  stupid  to  find  his  way  out  of  the  small 
inward-projecting  opening. 


The   Coast  with  a   Hundred   Harbors      349 

Clams  live  buried  in  the  mud  flats.  The  flats  are  ex- 
posed to  view  at  low  tide.  Then  the  men  and  boys  dig 
the  clams  out  much  as  a  farmer  digs  potatoes. 


©  Ka'khoffCo..  .V   Y- 

"Lobster-Charlie"  with  a  six-pounder 

In  Europe  various  little  fishes  have  long  been  canned 
as  sardines,  and  since  1875  the  industry  has  developed 
on  the  coast  of  Maine.  When  herring  are  feeding, 
they  swim  at  the  surface  of  the  tidal  currents  and  can 
be  caught  in  weirs.  The  weirs  are  closely  woven  brush 
fences  built  out  from  the  shore  with  the  outer  end 
curved  nearly  back  on  itself  and  finally  turned  a  short 
distance  into  the  enclosure,  but  having  a  small  open 
space,  for  an  entrance.  As  the  school  of  herring  moves 
along  with  the  tide  the  brush  fence  turns  them  into  the 
enclosure,  where  they  continue  to  swim  slowly  around 


350  New   England 

in  a  circle  without  finding  the  blind  entrance.  Pres- 
ently a  boat  containing  a  seine  arrives.  The  seine  is 
stretched  across  the  entrance,  and  the  boat  moves 
around  the  inner  side  of  the  enclosure  paying  out  the 


An  inlet  on  the  coast 

net  until  its  ends  are  brought  together.  At  its  lower 
edge  is  a  purse  line  which  is  drawn  to  close  the  bottom 
of  the  seine.  Then  the  entire  seine  is  hauled  in  so  that 
the  fish  are  in  a  sufficiently  reduced  space  to  be  taken 
with  dip-nets  into  the  boat.  Small  steamers  collect  the 
catch  and  deliver  it  at  the  factories,  where  the  fish  are 
cleaned  while  fresh  by  men,  women,  and  child  workers. 
Then  they  are  soaked  in  brine,  dried  on  wire  flakes, 
cooked  in  hot  oil  for  two  or  three  minutes,  and  packed  in 
small  tin  boxes.  Many  full-grown  herring  are  smoked. 
The  heads  and  other  refuse  are  made  into  fertilizer. 


The   Coast   with   a    Hundred   Harbors 


351 


The  Maine  coast  is  a  very  attractive  summer  re- 
sort region.  No  matter  how  hot  the  weather  may  be 
inland,  the  sea  breezes  and  cool  water  usually  make 
the  air  along  shore  quite  comfortable.  The  coast  is 
delightfully  bold  and  picturesque,  and  the  little 
steamers  that  thread  the  channels  among  the  islands 
bring  a  multitude  of  visitors  to  it  every  year.  Some 
places  have  become  prosperous  simply  through  sup- 
plying the  wants  of  the  warm  weather  cottagers  and 


Where  sea  and  land  meet 


©KalkhoITCo...\.  Y. 


boarders.  One  of  the  largest  of  the  summer  colonies 
is  that  which  dwells  on  the  islands  of  Casco  Bay.  Many 
of  the  families  that  have  vacation  homes  there  are 
from  Canada  and  the  Western  States. 


2^2  New   England 

The  largest  and  most  beautiful  Maine  island,  how- 
ever, is  Mount  Desert,  the  fame  of  which  is  world- 
wide. It  is  about  fourteen  miles  long  and  seven  broad. 
The  mainland  is  close  at  hand,  and  the  island  is  sep- 
arated from  it  only  by  narrow  winding  waterways. 
There  are  thirteen  mountains  on  the  island,  and  an 
equal  number  of  lakes  nestle  in  the  hollows  and  wild 
ravines.  The  loftiest  height  can  be  seen  sixty  miles 
out  at  sea. 

When  the  white  men  came  to  the  island  it  was  a 
favorite  resort  of  the  Indians.  The  waters  abounded 
with  fish,  and  game  birds  and  animals  were  plentiful 
on  the  land.  It  was  discovered  by  Champlain,  the 
great  French  explorer,  in  1604.  His  description  of  it 
says  that  the  summits  of  the  mountains  were  all  bare 
and  rocky.  Therefore,  he  called  it  "The  Isle  of  Desert 
Mountains." 

The  French  started  a  settlement  at  Mount  Desert 
seven  years  before  the  Pilgrims  landed  at  Plymouth. 
They  built  a  little  fort  and  a  number  of  houses,  and 
laid  out  their  gardens,  and  their  priests  set  to  work  to 
convert  the  Indians.  But  presently  an  armed  English 
ship  from  Virginia  appeared  one  summer  day  and 
saluted  them  with  a  broadside  of  guns.  The  settle- 
ment was  destroyed,  and  the  Frenchmen  were  seized 
as  intruders  in  the  territory  of  the  king  of  England. 

The  first  white  man  to  establish  a  permanent  home 
on  the  island  was  Abraham  Somes  of  Gloucester.  He 
came  to  Mount  Desert  in  his  fishing  boat  in  1761,  and 


The   Coast  with  a   Hundred   Harbors      353 

cut  a  load  of  barrel  staves  which  he  carried  back.  The 
next  year  he  voyaged  to  the  island  with  his  wife  and 
four  children,  and  built  a  log-house  up  at  the  head  of 
the  sound  which  bears  his  name.  Another  Gloucester 
family  came  the  same  year  and  settled  close  by.  The 
population  gradually  increased,  but  for  a  full  century 


the  dwellers  got  practically  all  their  Uvelihood  from 
farming  and  fishing. 

About  i860  the  island  began  to  win  the  favor  of 
wandering  artists  and  parties  of  college  students  on  a 
vacation.  Bar  Harbor  was  then  a  primitive  village 
of  farmers  and  fishermen.  The  land  was  thin  and 
poor,  and  the  point  on  which  the  town  afterward  grew 
was  bushclad  and  desolate.  Yet  in  twenty  years  Bar 
Harbor  became  one  of  the  most  popular  resorts  on  the 
New  England  coast. 


Indian  Head  on  Pleasant  River 


Maine  Places,  Industries,  and  Famous  People 

PORTLAND  is  by  far  the  largest  place  in  the  state. 
The  hilly  peninsula  on  which  the  city  is  located 
is  about  three  miles  long  and  has  an  average  width 
of  less  than  a  mile.  It  is  so  compactly  settled  that 
almost  every  available  building  spot  is  occupied. 

354 


Maine  Places,   Industries,   and   People      355 

The  lirst  cabins  were  erected  on  the  spot  in  1632. 
For  about  a  quarter  of  a  century  it  was  known  as 
Casco  Neck,  and  after  that  as  Falmouth.  Not  until 
1785  did  it  become  Portland. 

In  1676  and  again  in  1690  it  was  completely  destroyed 
by  the  Indians.  On  the  latter  occasion  no  one  was 
left  to  bury  the  slain.  More  than  two  years  later  a 
ship  that  was  voyaging  along  the  coast  stopped  there, 
and  the  crew  gathered  the  bleached  bones  and  buried 
them. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  Revolution  the  place  con- 
sisted of  about  five  hundred  dwellings  and  stores,  with 
many  barns  and  stables.  One  October  day  in  1775 
the  inhabitants  were  alarmed  by  the  sight  of  four 
British  vessels  entering  their  harbor.  The  next  day 
they  received  a  letter  from  the  commander  of  the 
fleet  stating  that  in  two  hours  he  would  bombard  the 
town.  A  committee  at  once  went  to  the  commander 
to  protest,  and  a  day's  respite  was  secured  by  de- 
livering to  him  eight  stands  of  small  arms.  He  offered 
a  further  delay  if  they  would  bring  him  four  cannon 
and  such  other  arms  and  ammunition  as  they  possessed. 

The  town  was  completely  at  his  mercy,  but  at  dawn 
the  following  morning  the  citizens  held  a  meeting  and 
resolved  to  sacrifice  their  homes  rather  than  to  sur- 
render the  rest  of  their  precious  guns  and  ammunition. 
The  committee  informed  the  captain  of  this  decision 
and  besought  him  for  a  longer  respite,  but  he  said,  "I 
will  give  you  thirty  minutes  and  no  more," 


i^^6  New   England 

There  were  few  teams  in  the  place,  and  nearly  all  the 
household  goods  still  remained  in  the  dwellings  or 
piled  up  before  the  doors  when  the  vessels'  batteries 
opened  on  the  town.  Cannon  balls,  bombs,  and 
grape-shot  were  showered  on  the  defenceless  village, 
and  most  of  the  people  fled  for  their  lives.  Many  of 
them  saved  only  what  they  bore  away  on  their  backs. 
Armed  parties  from  the  ships  came  on  shore  and  ap- 
plied torches  to  the  buildings.  One  of  the  few  persons 
who  did  not  leave  was  the  landlady  of  the  fashionable 
tavern  of  the  place.  She  extinguished  the  fires  on  her 
premises  with  buckets  of  water  as  fast  as  they  were  kin- 
dled. Toward  night,  when  the  bombardment  ceased 
and  the  fleet  sailed  away,  the  greater  part  of  the  town 
had  been  destroyed. 

After  the  second  war  with  England  trade  with  the 
West  Indies  rapidly  developed.  Lumber  and  fish  were 
the  chief  exports.  The  return  cargoes  were  sugar  and 
molasses.  For  many  years  Portland's  imports  in  these 
lines  exceeded  those  of  New  York  and  Boston.  The 
molasses  was  distilled  into  rum  in  large  quantities  until 
temperance  reform,  under  the  lead  of  the  Portland 
philanthopist,  Neal  Dow,  closed  the  distilleries. 

The  first  steamboat  used  on  the  coast  was  made 
by  a  Portland  captain  in  1822.  He  placed  an  old 
engine  on  a  flat-bottomed  boat,  and  rigged  up  some 
paddle-wheels  so  that  he  was  able  to  run  the  craft  to 
the  islands  of  Casco  Bay  and  some  of  the  adjacent 
mainland  towns.     He  called  his  vessel  the  Kennebec, 


Maine  Places,   Industries,  and  People      357 

but  the  people  called  it  the  Horned  Hog.  The  next 
year  a  steamboat  went  into  service  as  a  passenger 
vessel  between  Portland  and  Boston,  and  another 
steamboat  began  making  trips  on  the  Kennebec  River. 

It  was  a  great  event  for  Portland  when  that  city 
was  connected  by  railroad  with  Montreal  in  1853. 
Since  then  it  has  been  a  winter  seaport  of  Canada,  while 
the  St.  Lawrence  River  is  frozen  over.  Grain,  cattle, 
and  other  Canadian  products  arrive  on  the  railroad, 
and  are  transferred  to  steamships,  .which  cross  the 
ocean  to  England.  Other  steamship  lines  connect 
Portland  with  the  leading  American  coast  cities,  and 
railways  radiate  from  it  in  all  directions  to  the  impor- 
tant trade  centres. 

On  July  4,  1866,  a  fire-cracker  carelessly  thrown  into 
a  builder's  shop  started  a  conflagration  which  raged 
for  fifteen  hours  until  a  change  of  wind  enabled  Port- 
land's firemen  and  engines,  with  the  aid  of  those  that 
had  come  from  other  places,  to  control  the  flames. 
The  fire  swept  over  two  hundred  acres  in  the  centre  of 
the  city,  burned  eighteen  hundred  buildings,  rendered 
six  thousand  persons  homeless,  and  caused  a  property 
loss  of  fifteen  million  dollars. 

The  first  house  in  Portland  to  be  built  entirely  of 
brick  was  erected  in  1785  by  the  grandfather  of  the 
poet,  Henry  Wadsworth  Longfellow.  The  poet  was 
brought  to  this  house  as  an  infant,  and  it  was  his 
home  until  his  marriage.  To  the  end  of  his  life  he 
stayed  there  whenever  he  visited   the   scenes  of  his 


358 


New   England 


youth,  and  many  of  his  best  poems  were  written  in  it. 
He  was  born  in  1807  in  a  three-story  frame  house  in 
the  easterly  part  of  the  town  near  the  harbor, 

Longfellow  graduated  at  Bowdoin   College,  in  the 
manufacturing  city  of  Brunswick,  and  was  for  some 

years  a  Bowdoin  pro- 
fessor. Hawthorne 
was  another  famous 
Bowdoin  collegian. 

Harriet  Beecher 
Stowe  was  living  at 
Brunswick  when  she 
:  wrote  "Uncle  Tom's 
Cabin."  Her  husband 
was  at  that  time  an 
instructor  in  the  col- 
lege. She  did  the 
writing  amid  heavy 
domestic  responsibili- 
ties, with  untrained 
servants  to  oversee,  a 
baby  to  take  care  of,  and  several  pupils  in  the  family 
to  whom  she  gave  daily  lessons  with  her  own  children. 
The  sale  of  the  book  was  enormous  from  the  very  first, 
and  it  has  been  translated  into  at  least  nineteen  foreign 
languages.  The  story  was  dramatized,  and  probably 
no  other  play  has  been  produced  so  many  times. 

Bath  is  the  ship-building  city  of  Maine.     It  has  a 
deep,  safe  harbor,  and  can  conveniently  receive  coal 


Henry  W.  Longfellow 


Maine  Places,   Industries,  and   People      359 

and  iron  by  sea,  and  lumber  from  the  Androscoggin 
and  Kennebec  rivers.  The  vessels  that  are  launched 
from  the  Bath  shipyards  vary  greatly  in  size  and  kind. 
They  are  both  wooden  and  steel,  and  include  barges, 
schooners,  steamers,  and  even  warships. 

Bangor  on  the  Penobscot  is  the  most  notable  lumber 
centre  in  New  England.  It  gets  water  power  from 
falls,  logs  can  be  floated  to  it  direct  from  the  forests, 
and  the  river  below  is  navigable  for  ocean-going  ves- 
sels, so  that  the  lumber  can  be  sent  away  to  advantage. 


Grand  Falls  on  Dead  Ri\  cr 


Augusta,  the  capital  of  the  state,  is  the  largest  city 
on  the  Kennebec.  It  is  like  Bangor  in  having  water- 
power  and  being  at  the  head  of  ship  navigation. 


360  New   England 

The  Kennebec  and  the  Penobscot  produce  wealth  in 
winter  as  well  as  in  summer,  for  they  are  an  important 
source  of  ice  supply.  When  you  pass  up  beyond 
where  the  salt  water  penetrates  you  find  at  frequent 
intervals  the  big  wide-spreading  buildings  in  which  the 
ice  is  stored. 

Maine  winters  are  cold  enough  to  make  the  crop  a 
tolerably  sure  one,  and  the  ice  is  cut  over  the  very  spots 
where  the  ocean  vessels  moor  the  next  summer  to  take 
on  loads  of  it  which  they  carry  to  cities  on  the  coast 
farther  south.  The  ice  harvested  from  the  twenty-five 
miles  of  the  Kennebec  below  Augusta  is  worth  two 
or  three  million  dollars  a  year. 

As  soon  as  the  ice  is  strong  enough  to  bear  the 
weight  of  a  man,  claims  are  marked  out  by  setting  up 
bushes  or  stakes.  A  few  days  later  the  ice  is  usually 
thick  enough  to  be  safe  for  a  horse,  and  then  it  is 
gone  over  with  a  scraper  after  every  snow-storm,  for 
ice  will  not  make  rapidly  when  it  is  blanketed  with 
snow.  If  the  snow  unfortunately  comes  before  the 
scraper  can  be  used,  holes  are  cut  in  the  ice  to  let  the 
water  up  through.  This  freezes,  and  presently  a  horse- 
drawn  planer  can  venture  on  the  ice,  and  the  worthless 
snow-ice  is  removed. 

Usually  the  ice  attains  a  thickness  of  twelve  inches 
early  in  January,  and  cutting  and  storing  begin.  The 
field  is  marked  off  with  a  grooving  machine,  and  after- 
ward the  ice-ploughs  go  over  it  cutting  deeper  and 
deeper  until  the  blocks  of  ice  can  be  barred  off   in 


Maine   Places,    Industries,   and   People      361 

sections  of  several  cakes.  There  is  an  inclined  plane 
from  the  water  up  to  each  ice-house.  On  this  incline 
is  a  track  that  can  be  kept  moving  by  machinery  so  it 
will  carry  the  ice  blocks  from  the  stream  to  the  build- 
ing. A  canal  is  cut  from  the  elevator  out  into  the  river, 
and  through  this  the  ice-block  sections  are  floated. 
Near  the  foot  of  the  elevator  the  canal  is  spanned  by 


iVl  111*.  iiiuuUi  of  ihc  Kenncbunk. 


a  plank,  and  on  this  stands  a  man  jabbing  with  an 
iron  bar  as  the  ice  sections  pass  under  him  and  separat- 
ing them  into  single  cakes.  At  night  some  one  has  to 
stay  beside  the  canal  to  keep  it  open.  No  matter  how 
many  degrees  below  zero  the  mercury  may  go,  there 
you  find  him  toiling  back  and  forth  towing  a  drag  made 
of  heavy  pieces  of  wood  fastened  together  in  the  form 
of  a  triangle.  This  breaks  up  the  thin  sheets  of  new 
ice  as  fast  as  they  form. 


362  New   England 

The  harvest  comes  to  an  end  about  the  first  of 
March,  and  after  that  the  river  is  pretty  much  deserted 
until  warm  weather  navigation  is  resumed.  Then,  for 
many  months,  schooners  and  barges  are  always  being 
towed  by  tugs  up  or  down,  or  are  being  loaded  at  the 
ice  wharves. 

One  of  the  worst  years  Maine  ever  experienced  was 
181 7.  An  unusually  cold  winter  was  followed  by  a 
backward  spring,  and  the  weather  continued  to  be  so 
unseasonable  that  the  crops  were  failures,  and  the 
year  was  long  afterward  familiarly  known  as  eighteen 
hundred  and  freeze  to  death.  Thousands  of  dis- 
couraged farmers  sold  their  property  at  a  great  loss 
and  emigrated  to  Ohio  and  Kentucky.  But  within  a 
few  years  Maine  again  became  prosperous,  and  many 
of  those  who  had  moved  away  returned. 

Farming  is  the  leading  industry  in  most  of  the 
country  towns  south  of  the  forest  region.  Milk  and 
vegetables  are  produced  for  the  cities,  and  there  are 
numerous  creameries.  Many  fine  winter  apples  are 
sent  away  from  the  farm  orchards.  Immense  quan- 
tities of  apples,  squashes,  blueberries,  and  sweet  corn 
are  canned  and  shipped  to  the  big  towns  to  be  sold 
in  the  grocery  stores. 

It  is  claimed  that  the  climate  and  soil  of  Maine 
produce  a  quahty  of  sweet  corn  no  other  state  can 
equal.  The  owners  of  the  canneries  bargain  with  the 
farmers  in  the  spring  to  plant  land  to  sweet  corn  and 
agree  to  buy  the  crop  at  a  certain  price.     In  the  early 


•    Maine   Places,   Industries,   and   People      363 

fall  the  ears  are  carted  to  the  canneries  and  husked, 
and  the  milky  kernels  are  cut  off  by  machines.  After 
being  sweetened  and  cooked,  the  corn,  while  yet  steam- 
ing, is  put  in  cans  which  are  at  once  sealed.  Finally 
the  cans  are  labeled  and  packed  in  boxes.  Blueberries 
grow  wild  in  all  parts  of  the  state,  but  are  particularly 
plentiful  in  several  rocky  townships  of  Washington 
County  which  have  been  largely  swept  by  fire.  Here 
the  blueberry  lands  are  leased  in  sections  of  one  hun- 
dred acres  or  more,  and  the  lessees  burn  over  about 
one  third  of  the  surface  each  spring,  for  the  blueberry 
bushes  will  not  thrive  if  the  land  is  allowed  to  grow  up 
to  brush  or  trees.  The  harvest  continues  for  about 
six  weeks,  and  most  of  the  hundreds  of  pickers  camp 
on  the  grounds.  The  berries  are  hauled  daily  to  the 
canning  factory,  or  are  sent  away  fresh  to  the  city 
markets.  The  picking  is  done  chiefly  by  women  and 
children. 

In  the  northeastern  part  of  the  state  is  a  very  rich 
new  agricultural  country.  The  soil  is  loose  and  open, 
and  the  surface  gently  rolling.  Wheat  and  other 
grains  are  grown,  and  flour  is  made  in  the  local  grist 
mills,  but  potatoes  are  the  principal  farm  product, 
particularly  in  the  great  county  of  Aroostook,  which 
is  nearly  as  large  as  the  entire  state  of  Massachusetts. 
The  total  amount  of  potatoes  produced  in  the  county, 
the  quality,  and  the  yield  per  acre  are  all  impressive. 
They  are  planted,  cultivated,  and  dug  by  machines. 
Most  of  them  are  sold  for  food  or  to  be  used  for  seed 


3^4 


New   England 


in  other  states,  but  the  smaller  ones  are  taken  to  fac- 
tories to  be  made  into  starch. 

One  of  the  valuable  products  of  Maine  is  stone. 
There  are  great  quarries  at  various  places  along  the 


In  an  Aroostook  potato  field.     The  yield  was  at  the  rate 
of  four  hundred  and  sixty-two  bushels  to  an  acre 

coast  where  granite  is  blasted  out,  cut  into  such  shapes 
and  sizes  as  are  desired,  and  shipped  to  different  parts 
of  the  country.  Much  of  the  granite  is  used  for  street 
paving  or  the  walls  of  buildings,  but  the  varied  colors 
of  different  granites  and  the  enduring  beauty  of  their 
polished  surfaces  have  led  to  the  use  of  the  stone  in  the 
interior  of  buildings  and  for  monuments  in  cemeteries. 
It  is  very  hard,  and  the  fashioning  of  it  has  to  be  done 
chiefly  by  means  of  the  chisel  and  hammer,  and  by  a 
power  drill  run  by  compressed  air.  This  power  drill 
is  held  by  a  workman,  and  he  directs  its  swift  blows 
against  the  stone. 


Maine  Places,   Industries,   and   People      365 


In  and  around  Rockland  are  inexhaustible  limestone 
beds  that  have  been  worked  for  two  centuries,  and 
the  lime  produced  in  Maine  exceeds  the  output  of  any 
other  state.  Formerly  the  rock  was  drilled  by  hand, 
blasted  with  powder,  and  hauled  in  ox  carts  to  the 
kilns  where  it  was  burned  with  wood  fires  for  several 
days  to  make  lime.  Now  power  drills  prepare  the  holes 
for  the  dynamite  used,  and  the  stone  is  hoisted  on 
electric  cable-ways  to  cars  that  take  it  to  the  kilns  at 
the  wharves.  There  the  lime  is  burned  in  a  single  day 
by  using  soft  coal  and  a  forced  draft. 

Among  Maine's  famous  men  perhaps  none  is  more 
widely  known  than  the  humorist,  "Artemus  Ward." 
He  was  born  in  1834  in  the  little 
village  of  Waterford,  some  fifty 
miles  north  of  Portland.  His  real 
name  was  Charles  Farrar  Browne. 
As  a  boy  he  was  so  given  to 
pranks  that  the  neighbors  freely 
predicted  that  he  would  never 
come  to  any  good.  One  of  his 
earliest  exploits  was  the  organiz- 
ing of  a  circus.  He  put  on  a 
gown  of  his  mother's  and  her 
best  bonnet,  and  acted  as  clown 
and  manager-in-chief,  with  his  village  cronies  for  assist- 
ants. His  father's  red  crumple-horn  cow,  covered 
with  blankets  of  different  colors  and  having  a  stuffed 
coat  sleeve  for  a  trunk,  served  as  the  elephant.     The 


" Ailemus  Ward," 
the  humorist 


366  New   England 

calves  and  the  dogs  and  cats  did  for  other  strange 
animals. 

When  Charles  was  thirteen  his  father  died,  and  soon 
afterward  the  boy  left  home  to  earn  his  own  living. 
After  he  grew  up  and  had  won  fame  as  a  writer  and 
lecturer  his  "summer  loaf,"  as  he  called  it,  was  usually 
spent  at  the  old  homestead  in  Waterford.  He  died 
when  not  quite  thirty- three  years  old. 

Another  notable  Maine  writer  was  Jacob  Abbott, 
who  was  born  in  1803  at  Hallo  well  on  the  Kennebec. 
He  was  one  of  five  brothers,  all  of  whom  became 
preachers  and  teachers,  and,  with  a  single  exception, 
authors.  In  the  middle  of  the  century  he  was  the 
most  popular  American  writer  for  children.  His  Rollo 
Books  were  particularly  famous. 

In  later  life  he  lived  at  Farmington,  where  he  had  a 
place  which  he  called  "Fewacres,"  on  high  ground 
overlooking  a  river  winding  through  one  of  the  most 
fertile  and  tranquil  valleys  in  New  England.  He 
built  bridges,  made  paths,  put  up  benches  for  seats, 
broadened  and  deepened  a  brook  into  a  pond  for  the 
enjoyment  of  his  boys,  and  made  the  place  a  little 
paradise. 

A  third  Maine  writer,  whose  stories  are  particularly 
noteworthy,  was  Sarah  Orne  Jewett.  Her  birthplace 
was  South  Berwick.  New  England  life  and  nature 
have  never  been  portrayed  more  faithfully  than  in  her 
delightful  books. 


INDEX 


Abbott,  Jacob,  366 
Adams,  John,  100 
Adams,  John  Quincy,  10 1 
Agriculture,   8,    143,    173,    159,    279, 

303-  362 
Alcott,  Louisa  M.,  160 
Alden,  John,  54 
Aldrich,  Thomas  Bailey,  275 
Allen,  Ethan,  286,  292 
Amherst,  N.  H.,  276 
Amherst  College,  123 
Arnold,  Benedict,  188,  194 
Aroostook  County,  Me.,  363 
"Artemus  Ward,"  365 
Ascutney,  Mount,  275 
Augusta,  Me.,  389 

Bangor,  Me.,  359 

Bar  Harbor,  Me.,  353 

Barnum,  P.  T.,  191 

Barre,  Vt.,  311 

Bath,  Me.,  358 

Beacon  Hill,  60 

Bear  Mountain,  179 

Bears,  268 

Beecher,  Henry  Ward,  203 

Bellows  Falls,  Vt.,  21 

Bennington,  Vt.,  138,  285,  287,  290 

Berkley,  Mass.,  148 

Berkshire  County,  Mass.,  130 

Berlin,  Conn.,  175 

Bethlehem,  N.  H.,  258 

Beverly,  Mass.,  98,  116 

Biddeford,  Me.,  327 

Birds,  42 

Block,  Adrian,  17,  212 

Block  Island,  211 

Blueberries,  363 


Boston,  6,   26,   27,  31,  32,   59,   279, 

347 
Boston  Common,  64 
Boston  Massacre,  70 
Boston  Tea  Party,  78 
Bowdoin  College,  358 
Bradford,  William,  47 
Brandon,  Vt.,  35 
Branford,  Conn.,  185 
Ikatlleboro,  Vt.,   283,   285,  310 
Bridgeport,  Conn.,  172,  191 
Bristol,  R.  I.,  220,  240 
Brook  Farm,  8r 
Brookline,  Mass.,  75 
Brooklyn,  Conn.,  204 
Brunswick,  Me.,  358 
Bryant,  William  Cullen,  54,  123 
Bunker  Hill,  74 
Burgoyne,  General,  138,  312 
Burlington,  Vt.,  31,  292,  298 
Burr,  Aaron,  141 


Cambridge,  Mass.,  154 

Cape  Ann,  98 

Cape  Cod,  2,  36 

Casco  Bay,  322,  351 

Champlain,  Lake,  283,  288,  293,  303 

Champlain.  Samuel,  293 

Charlemont,  Mass.,  125 

Charlestown,  Mass.,  60,  74,  79,  98 

Charter  Oak,  199 

Cheshire,  Mass.,  134 

Chocorua,  Mount,  277 

Clams,  42,  349 

Clocks,  181 

Concord,  Mass.,  73,  157 

Concord,  X.  H.,  31,  150,  279 

Connecticut  River,  4,  12,  115,  i6x 

367 


368 


Index 


Cornish,  N.  H.,  274 
Cottage  City,  ISIass.,  113 
Cotton,  146,  148,  242 
Coventry,  Conn.,  208 
Cowa,  304 
Cranberries,  38 
Crawford  Notch,  259 
Cummington,  Mass.,  123 
Curfew,  no 

Dana,  Richard  Henry,  156 
Danbury,  Conn.,  182 
Dancing  Mortar,  219 
"Dark  Day,"  189 
Dartmouth  College,  255,  278 
Deerfield,  Mass.,  126 
Derby,  Conn.,  182 
Dexter,  Lord  Timothy,  98 
Dorchester,  Mass.,  80 
Dover,  N.  H.,  248 
Dunstable,  Mass.,  324 
Durfee  Hill,  245 

East  Granby,  Conn.,  177 

East  Poultney,  Vt.,  301 

Echo  Lake,  265 

Edwards,  Jonathan,  140,  202 

Electric  railroads,  35 

Eliot,  John,  80,  149 

Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,  64,  158 

Enfield  Rapids,  12,  17 

Exeter  Academy,  278 

Fairfield,  Vt.,  302 
Fall  River,  Mass.,  149 
Faneuil  Hall,  72 
Farmington,  Me.,  366 
Field,  Cyrus  Dudley,  141 
Fish,  42,  77,  82,  242,  349 
Forests,  309,  329 
Forest  fires,  267,  338 
Fort  Dummer,  Vt.,  283 
Fort  Kent,  Me.,  321 
Franklin,  Benjamin,  69,  192 
Fryeburg,  Me.,  324 


Glacier,  4 

Gloucester,  Mass.,  84 

Goodyear,  Charles,  189 

Granite,  31,  74,  100,  279,  311,  364 

Greeley,  Horace,  276,  300 

Greenbach,  Mass.,  103 

Greene,  Nathanael,  245 

Green  Mountain  Boys,  286,  288 

Greenwich,  Conn.,  207 

Greylock,  IMount,  131 

Guilford,  Conn.,  171 

Hadley,  Mass.,  125,  185 

Hale,  Nathan,  208 

Hallowell,  Me.,  366 

Hancock,  John,  63 

Hanover,  N.  H.,  255 

Hartford,  Conn.,  6,  26,  31,  162,  198 

Harv'ard  College,  154 

Haverhill,  Mass.,  150 

Hawthorne,  Nathaniel,  95,  141,  159 

Hingham,  Mass.,  loi 

Holmes,  Oliver  Wendell,  63,  80 

Holyokc,  Mass.,  120 

Holyoke,  Mount,  15 

Hooker,  General,  126 

Hoosac  Tunnel,  132 

Hope,  Mount,  220,  225 

Howe,  Elias,  145 

Hunting,  268,  342 

Indians,  17,  23,  47,  50,  52,  55, 
62,  80,  108,  116,  117,  138,  146, 
149,  150,  165,  212,  220,  248,  282, 
316,  322,  339 

Isles  of  Shoals,  272 

Jewett,  Sarah  Orne,  366 
"Josh  Billings,"  135 

Katahdin,  Mount,  264,  330 
Kennebec  River,  317,  360 
Kidd,  Captain,  68,  129 
Killingworth,  Conn.,  186 
Kipling,  Rudyard,  310 


Index 


369 


Kineo,  Mount,  339 

King  Philip's  War,  5,  117,  216,  220, 

220,  248,  322 
Kingston,  R.  I.,   221 

Lafayette,  General,  74 
Lancaster,  N.  H.,  146 
Lanesboro,  Mass.,  135 
Larcom,  Lucy,  150 
Lawrence,  Mass.,  150 
Lebanon,  Conn.,  255 
Lenox,  Mass.,  141 
Lexington,  Mass.,  157 
Lighthouses,  44,  102,  345 
Litchfield,  Conn.,  202,  287 
Lobsters,  348 
Londonderry,  N.  H.,  252 
Longfellow,  Henry  W.,  54,  156,  234, 

357 
Lovewell,  Captain,  324 
Lowell,  Mass.,  32,  149 
Lowell,  James  Russell,  156,  272 
Lynn,  Mass.,  152 

Mail,  26 

Maiden,  Mass.,  98 
Manchester,  Mass.,  98 
Manchester,  N.  H.,  255,  279,  280 
Mansfield,  Mount,  309 
Manufacturing,  8,  144,  175,  198,  242, 

279 
Maple  sugar,  306  ' 

Marble,  312 
Marblehead,  Mass.,  96 
"Mark  Twain,"  201 
Marshfield,  Mass.,  104 
Marthas  Vineyard,  112,  347 
Massasoit,  52,  55,  221,  237 
Mather,  Cotton,  37 
Mayjloicer,  46,  48 
Memphremagog,  Lake,  253 
Meriden,  Conn.,  182 
Milford,  Conn.,  184 
Minot's  Ledge  Lighthouse,   102 
Mohegan  Indians,  167,  212 


Monadnock,  Mount,  249 
Montpelier,  Vt.,  292 
Moodus,  Conn.,  209 
Moon  Hollow,  134 
Moosehead  Lake,  339 
Morse,  Samuel,  74 
Mount  Desert,  352 
Mount  Holyoke  College,  1 23 

Nantucket,  Mass.,  85,  105 
Narragansett  Indians,  55,   168,  215, 

221 
Narragansett  Pier,  R.  I.,  226 
Nashua,  N.  H.,  279 
New  Ashford,  Mass.,  136 
New  Bedford,  Mass.,  149 
Newbury,  Vt.,  315 
Newburyport,  Mass.,  98 
New   Haven,    Conn.,    26,    146,    183, 

198 
New  London,  Conn.,  27,  170,  192 
Newport,  R.  I.,  226 
Newton,  Mass.,  32 
Norsemen,  234 
North  Adams,  Mass.,  132 
Northampton,  Mass.,  14,  123 
Northtield,  Mass.,  128 
North  Kingston,  R.  I.,  246 
North  Pownal,  \'t.,  302 

"Old  Leather  Man,"  209 

Old  Man  of  the  Mountain,  266 

Old  Orchard,  :\Ie.,  345 

Oldtown,  Me.,  340 

Onata,  Lake,  138 

Ossipee  Pond,  324 

Oysters,  195 

Paper,  121,  335 
Parkman,  Francis,  64 
Pawtucket,  R.  I.,  243 
Peat,  216 

Penobscot  Indians,  340 
Pequot  Indians,  165 
Philip,  King,  220 


37° 


Index 


Phipps,  William,  320 

Pilgrims,  46,  48 

Pirates,  66,  68,  77,  129,  14S 

Pittsfield,  Mass.,  138 

Plainfield,  Mass.,  124 

Plymouth,  jSIass.,  49 

Plymouth  Rock,  49 

Portland,  Me.,  6,  322,  354 

Portsmouth,  N.  H.,  275,  278 

Post-rider,  26 

Potatoes,  363 

Privateers,  239 

Providence,  R.  I.,  6,  27,  32,  237 

Provincetown,  Mass.,  45,  347 

Putnam,  General,  204 

Quakers,  66,  117 

Quincy,  Mass.,  31,  74,  100 

Railroads,  31 
Rangeley  Lakes,  343 
Regicides,  125,  184 
Revere,  Paul,  75,  157 
Roads,  23 
Rockland,  Me.,  365 
Roxbury,  Mass.,  80 
Rumney,  N.  H.,  253 
Rutland,  Vt.,  288 
Rye,  N.  H.,  248 

St.  Albans,  Vt.,  31,  305 

St.  Gaudens,  Augustus,  274 

St.  Johnsbury,  Vt.,  309 

Salem,  Mass.,  91 

Salisbury,  Conn.,  178 

Salisbury,  Mass.,  107 

Salisbury,  N.  H.,  277 

Sand  dunes,  45 

Saybrook,  Conn.,  163,  186,  192 

Shad,  21,  280 

Shays'  Rebellion,  119 

Sheep,  304 

Shipwrecks,  43,  87,  218 

Shoes,  152 

Shoreham,  Vt.,  288 


Shrewsbury,  Mass.,  153 

Slate  quarries,  311 

Slave  trade,  227 

Slocum,  Captain  Joshua,  114 

Smith,  Captain  John,  1,  98,  318 

Smith  College,  123 

Smugglers,  297 

South  Berwick,  Me.,  366 

South  Hadley  Falls,  Mass.,  18,  19,  22 

South  Kingston,  R.  I.,  246 

South  Norwalk,  Conn.,  208 

South  Windsor,  Conn.,  202 

Spencer,  Mass.,  145 

Springfield,  Mass.,  26,  32,  34,  116 

Springfield  Republican,   120 

Stage-coaches,  28 

Stamford,  Conn.,  t,^ 

Standish,  Miles,  47,  53,  100 

Stark,  John,  272,  289 

Stockbridge,  Mass.,  140 

Stowe,  Harriet  Beecher,  203,  358 

Strawberry  Bank,  N.  H.,  248 

Summer  resorts,  270,  351 

Sunapee  Lake,  271 

Swansea,  Mass.,  55 

Taunton,  Mass.,  148 
Thompsonville,  Conn.,  182 
Thoreau,  Henry  D.,  41,  160 
Tiverton,  R.  I.,  229 
Tobacco,  174 
"Tom  Thumb,"  191 
Town  crier,  no 
Travel,  23 

Trowbridge,  J.  T.,  157 
Truro,  Mass.,  43 
Turners  Falls,  Mass.,  127 

Virginia,  Vt.,  285 

Wachusett,  Mount,  146 
Waldron,  Ricliard,  248 
Waltham,  Mass.,  153 
Warner,  Charles  Dudley,  124 
Warwick,  R.  I.,  229,  246 


Index 


371 


Washington,  George,  29,  155,  204 

Washington,  Mount,  257,  261,  279 

Watches,  153 

Watch  Hill,  R.  I.,  226 

Waterbury,  Conn.,  181 

Waterford,  Me.,  365 

Watertown,  Mass.,  213 

Weather,  2 

Webster,  Daniel,  74,  104,  277 

Webster,  Noah,  201 

Westboro,  Mass.,  146 

Westbrook,  Conn.,  179 

Westfield,  Mass.,  120 

West  Haven,  Vt.,  300 

Westminster,  Vt.,  2 85 

West  Rutland,  Vt.,  312 

West  Tisbury,  Mass.,  114 

Wethersfield,  Conn.,   123,   162,    167, 

186 
Whales,  42,  108,  149,  195 
Whitehall,  Vt.,  313 


White  Mountains,  257 
Whiine)-,  Eli,  146,  243 
Whittier,  John  G.,  152 
Wickford,  R.  I.,  224 
Williams,  Roger,  93,  237 
Williamstovvn,  Mass.,  134 
Willimantic,  Conn.,  182 
Windmills,  40,  iii 
Windsor,  Conn.,  162,  181 
Windsor,  Vt.,  275 
Winnepesaukee,  Lake,  271 
Winthrop,  Governor,  60,  61,  68 
Witches,  73,  93 
Woodworth,  Samuel,  103 
Wool,  200 
Woolwich,  Me.,  320 
Worcester,  Mass.,  26,  32,  144 

Yale  College,  185 
Yarmouth,  Mass.,  45 
York,  Me.,  319 


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